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THE BOOK OF COURAGE
THE SUNRISE INSPIRATIONAL BOOKS
THE FIRST VOLUME
THE BOOK OF COURAGE
By JOHN T. FARIS
Volumes on other subjects in preparation for this series
OTHER BOOKS
By JOHN T. FARIS
SEEING PENNSYLVANIA
Frontispiece in color, 113 illustrations and 2 maps
THE ROMANCE OF OLD
PHILADELPHIA
Frontispiece in color and 101 illustrations
OLD ROADS OUT OF
PHILADELPHIA
117 illustrations and a map
By JOHN T. FARIS
and THEODOOR DEBOOY
THE VIRGIN ISLANDS
OUR NEW POSSESSIONS AND THE
BRITISH ISLANDS
97 illustrations and five maps
THE BOOK OF
COURAGE
BY
JOHN T. FARIS
AUTHOR OF
"THE VICTORY LIFE," "MAKING GOOD," "OLD ROADS OUT O
PHILADELPHIA," "SEEING PENNSYLVANIA," ETC.
PHILADELPHIA & LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1920
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS
PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A.
FOREWORD
A TEACHER has told of the greatest moment of discouragement that ever came to her. At cost of great labor she had fitted up a room for the use of children, placing pictures on the walls, plants in the windows, goldfish on the table, and a canary in a cage. But the night before the day when she planned to welcome the children to the room there was a cold snap, and the janitor let the fire go out. In the morning she looked on broken radiators, frozen goldfish, drooping plants, and what she feared was a dead bird. In her despair she was about to decide that she would never make another effort to have things pleasant for the children, when the bit of fluff in the bird-cage, roused from stupor by the noise made by the discouraged woman, lifted its voice in song.
That song told her that she had reached once again the point that comes to everyone, times without number, the point that separates the life of conquest from the life of defeat, the life of cowardice from the life of courage. She was at the crossroads, and she took the turning to the right. The bird's song marked for her the end of discouragement.
"I can sing, as well as the bird," she said to herself. And at once she began to make plans for her charges.
Everywhere there are people who feel that the odds are against them, that difficulties in the way are unsurmountable, that it is useless to make further effort to conquer. The author of "The Book of Courage" knows by experience how they feel, and he longs to send to them a message of cheer and death-to-the-blues, a call to go on to the better things that wait for those who face life in the spirit of the gallant General Petain, whose watchword, "They shall not pass!" put courage into his men and hope into the hearts of millions all over the world.
"Courage!" is the call to these. "Courage" is likewise the word to those who are already struggling in the conquering spirit of Sir Walter Scott who, when both domestic calamity and financial misfortune came, said to a comforter, "The blowing off of my hat on a stormy day has given me more weariness," who called adversity "a tonic and a bracer."
The world needs courage—the high courage that shows itself in a life of daily struggle and conquest, that smiles at obstacles and laughs at difficulties.
How is the needed courage to be secured? What are the springs of courage? What are some of the results of courage? These are questions "The Book of Courage" seeks to answer by telling of men and women who have become courageous.
Glorious provision has been made by the Inspirer of men for giving courage to all, no matter what their difficulties or their hardships. Among His provisions are home and friends, work and service, will and conscience, the world with all its beauty, and Himself as Companion and Friend.
Thus we are left absolutely without excuse when we are tempted to let down the bars to worry and gloom and discouragement.
Keep up the bars! Don't let the enemies of peace and progress pass! And always,
"Like the star,
That shines afar,
Without haste,
And without rest,
Let each man wheel, with steady sway
Round the tasks that rule the day,
And do his best."
J. T. F.
Philadelphia, 1920
CONTENTS
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THE BOOK OF COURAGE
CHAPTER ONE
THE COURAGE OF SELF-CONQUEST
THE highest courage is impossible without self-conquest. And self-conquest is never easy. A man may be a marvel of physical courage, and be a coward in matters of self-government. Failure here threatens dire disaster to his entire career.
Alexander the Great conquered most of the world he knew, but he permitted his lower nature to conquer his better self, and he died a disappointed, defeated man.
Before the days of Alexander there was a man named Nehemiah from whom the world-conqueror might have learned a few secrets. He was a poor exile in the service of a foreign ruler. That ruler sent him down to Jerusalem, the capital city of his own home land, with instructions to govern the people there. Now, in those days, it was a common thing for governors of cities to plunder the people unfortunate enough to be in their charge. Thus Nehemiah would have had ample precedent to fill his own coffers by injustice, profiteering and worse: he had the power. Possibly he was tempted to do something of the sort. But he had the courage to shut up tight all baser passions, and then to sit firmly on the lid. In the brief record of his service he referred to some of the self-seeking governors, and told of their rascally deeds. Then he added the significant words, "So did not I."
That was certainly courage—the courage of self-conquest.
As a young man Ulysses S. Grant was a brave soldier, but he nearly wrecked his life because of weak yielding to his appetite. His real career began only with self-conquest. When he found the courage to fight himself—and not until then—he became ready for the marvelous life of high courage that never faltered when he was misunderstood by associates and maligned by enemies, that pressed steadily onward, in the face of biting disease, until work was done, until honor was satisfied.
I
RESTRAINING SELF
A little girl four years old came trembling to her mother and asked for pencil and paper. Then, teeth set and eyes flashing, she pounced on the paper and began to make all sorts of vicious marks. Asked what she was doing, she said she was writing a letter to a sister who had offended her by an act that had been misunderstood. "She is not a nice girl," the little critic said, "and I'm telling her so. I don't like her any more, and I'm saying that." As she wrote her hand trembled; she was carried away by her unpleasant emotion. After a few moments, unable to go on with her self-appointed task, she flung herself, sobbing, into her mother's arms and for half an hour she could not control herself.
The sight was pitiful. But far more pitiful is the spectacle of one old enough to know better who yields to vexation and hatred, thereby not only making himself disagreeable, but robbing himself of power to perform the duties of the hour. For there is nothing so exhausting as uncontrolled emotion. There is so much for each one of us to do, and every ounce of strength is needed by those who would play their part in the world. Then what spendthrift folly it is to waste needed power on emotion that is disquieting, disagreeable and disgraceful!
That lesson was never impressed more forcibly than by a French officer of whom a visitor from America asked, "Did I understand that you had lost three sons?" "Yes, sir, and two brothers," was the proud reply. "How you must hate the Boche," remarked a bystander. "No, no," was the instant reply, "not hate; just pity, sir; pity, but not hate. Hate, you know, is an excessive emotion, sir; and no one can do effective work if he spends his vitality in an excess of emotion. No," he concluded, "we cannot hate; we cannot work if we burn up ourselves inside. Pity, sir; pity. 'They know not what they do.' That's the idea. And they don't."
The same lesson of self-restraint was taught by Marshal Foch in his words to the soldiers of France. He urged them to keep their eyes and ears ready and their mouths "in the safety notch"; and he told them they must obey orders first and kick afterwards if they had been wronged. He said, "Bear in mind that the enemy is your enemy and the enemy of humanity until he is killed or captured; then he is your dear brother or fellow soldier beaten or ashamed, whom you should no further humiliate." He told them that it was necessary to keep their heads clear and cool, to be of good cheer, to suffer in silence, to dread defeat, but not wounds, to fear dishonor, but not death, and to die game. Because so many of the soldiers under him heeded this wise admonition, they did not waste their precious strength on useless and harmful emotions, but they were ever ready to go to their task, with the motto of their division, "It shall be done."
What a blessing it will be to the world that millions of young men were trained in France to repress hurtful emotion, to exercise self-restraint—which may be defined as the act or process of holding back or hindering oneself from harmful thoughts or actions. And what a wonderful thing it will be if the lesson is passed on to us, so that we shall not be like the torrent that wastes its power by rushing and brawling over the stones, all to no purpose, but like the harnessed stream whose energy is made to turn the wheels of factory and mill. For only guarded and guided strength is useful and safe.
II
EFFACING SELF
"Every man that falls must understand beforehand that he is a dead man and nothing can save him. It is useless for him to cry out, and it may, by giving the alarm, cause the enterprise to fail."
This was the message to his men of the officer to whom Napoleon committed the capture of Mt. Cenis.
The historian tells us that at one point in the ascent of a precipitous track, three men fell. "Their bodies were heard bounding from crag to crag, but not a cry was heard, not a moan. The body of one hero was recovered later. There was a smile on his lips."
How that record of the silence succeeded by a smile grips the heart, for it was not the false courage that plays to the grandstand, but the deeper, truer courage that sinks self for the good of others, and does this not merely because it is a part of the game, but with the gladness that transfigures life.
Such courage does not wait for some great occasion for exhibiting itself; it is revealed in the midst of the humdrum routine of daily life—a routine that is especially trying to those who have been looking forward to some great, perhaps dramatic service.
A young man of seventeen entered the navy, with his parents' consent, as an apprentice. When he left home he had dreams of entering at once on a life of thrilling adventure where there would be numberless opportunities for the display of high courage. At the end of a month a friend asked him how he liked life at the navy yard. "Fine!" was the reply. "What are you doing?" was the next query. "They haven't given me anything but window washing to do yet," he replied, with a smile that was an index of character.
A newspaper writer has told of a college student nineteen years old who enlisted in the navy. He was sent to one of our naval stations and told to guard a pile of coal. As the summer passed he still guarded that coal pile. He wrote home about it:
"You know, dad, when we were little shavers, you always rubbed it into us that anything that was worth doing at all was worth doing as well as it could be done. I've been standing over that coal pile nearly three months now, and it looks just exactly as small as it did when I first landed on the job."
"He was relieved from the coal pile at last and promoted," said the writer who told of him. "At the same time the government gave him a last chance to return to his college work. He thought it over carefully. He realized that America was going to need trained men as never before, but still, he decided, the best service that he individually could give was the one that he had chosen. He had a few days of leave before going on to his next assignment, and he hurried back to his home. He found that his summer task was a matter of town history, and he had to face a good deal of affectionate raillery about his coal pile. Of course he did not mind that. But his answer revealed his spirit:
"'You may laugh, but that coal pile was all right. I'll admit it got on my nerves for a bit, but I figured it out that while I was taking care of that coal pile I was releasing some other fellow who knew things I didn't know, and who could do things I couldn't do. I'm ready to stand by a coal pile till the war ends, if that's where I can help the most.'"
"That is the spirit that will conquer because it is the spirit that never can be conquered," was the comment made on the incident. "There is no self in it—only consecration to duty; no seeking for large things—only for an opportunity to serve whenever the call comes. That is the spirit that is growing in America to-day—and only through such spirit can we accomplish our great task in the life of the world."
The man who really desires to serve his fellows does not think of declaring that he will not do humble tasks, but he demands that the work he is asked to do shall be needed.
A young man who was seeking his life work made known his willingness to be a shoe-black, if he could be convinced that this was the work God wanted him to do. An immigrant in New York City read in the morning, "Lord, my heart is not haughty nor mine eyes lofty." Then he went out to sweep a store, and he swept it well. It is worthy of note that the young man who was willing to be a shoe-black became one of the foremost men of his generation, and that the immigrant became the pastor of a leading city church. But a far more important fact is that the quality of the service given counted more in their minds than the character of the employment.
The service of the man who would be worth while in the world must partake of the spirit of the successful figure on the baseball diamond or the football gridiron: readiness to do everything, or anything—or to do nothing, if he is so directed—in the interests of the team. It must take a leaf from the book of General Pershing and his fellow officers who, in a time of stress for the Allies, were willing and eager to brigade their troops with the soldiers of France and England, thus losing the identity of their forces in the interest of the great cause for which they stood. It must learn the lesson taught by the life of Him who emptied Himself for the sake of the world—and did it with a smile.
III
FORGIVING INJURIES
A gifted writer has told the story of a workman in a Bessemer steel furnace who was jealous of the foreman whom he thought had injured him. The foreman was making a good record, and the workman did not want to see him succeed. So he plotted his undoing—he loosened the bolts of the cable that controlled an important part of the machinery, and so caused an accident that not only interfered seriously with the day's turn, but put a section of the plant out of commission for the time being. As a result the superintendent was discharged. When he left he vowed vengeance on the man whom he suspected of causing his discharge: "I'll get you for this some day," he declared. Perhaps he would have been even more emphatic if he had known the extent of his enemy's culpability.
Years passed. The workman who had loosened the bolts became superintendent of the mill. He, too, tried to break a production record, and was in a fair way to succeed until some mysterious difficulty developed that interfered seriously with results. And just when the new superintendent was losing sleep over his problem, the old superintendent came to town.
"He's come for his revenge!" was the thought of the new superintendent.
But the superintendent did not wait for a visit from the man he feared; he sought him at once. "He must know the extent of my meanness," he decided. So he told his story. To his surprise the former foreman seemed more interested in the account of the progress of the mill than in the sorry tale of past misdeeds. Learning of the mysterious difficulty that threatened failure in the attempt to break the production record, the injured man showed real concern. "I can't imagine where the difficulty is, but I'd like to take a look around for it," he said. Arm in arm, then, the two men, once bitter enemies, moved toward the mill. The search was successful, the difficulty was corrected, and the record was broken.
Fine story, isn't it? What a pity it is only a story, that such things don't ever happen in real life!
Don't they? How about Henry Nasmyth, the English inventor of the steam piledriver, whose ideas were stolen by French machinists? His first knowledge of the piracy was when he saw a crude imitation of his piledriver in a factory in France. Instead of seeking damages and threatening vengeance, he pointed out mistakes made in construction and helped his imitators perfect the appliance they had stolen from him.
Yes, such things do happen in daily life. They are happening every day. As we read of them or hear of them or meet people who are actors in such a drama, we are conscious of admiration for the deed, a quickening of the pulse, and the thankful thought that the world is not such a bad place after all.
But are we to stop with quickened heartbeats and gratitude for the greatness of heart shown by others? How about the bitterness we have been treasuring against some one who has injured us—or some one we think has injured us (it is astonishing how many of the slights and indignities for which vengeance has been vowed are only imaginary, after all!) How long do we intend to persist in treasuring the grudge that has perhaps already caused sorrow that cannot be measured? Let's be courageous enough to own ourselves in the wrong, when we are in the wrong, and to forgive the evil that has been kept alive by our persistent efforts to remember it. Let the quickened pulse-beat be ours not merely because we are hearing about forgiveness, but because we ourselves are rejoicing in friendship restored.
IV
FORGETTING WRONGS
There are people whose minds are like a lumber-room, littered with all sorts of odds and ends. In such a room it is impossible to count on laying hands promptly on a desired article, and in such a mind confusion takes the place of order. The mind had better be empty. An empty mind presents a fine opening for the proper kind of filling, but a confused mind is hopeless. How is it possible to make the memory a helpful servant unless nothing is allowed to find lodgment there that is not worth while?
An old proverb says, "No one can keep the birds from flying about his head, but one can keep them from nesting in his hair." That proverb points the way to saving the mind from becoming a lodging place for lumbering thoughts and ideas; everything that is certain to hinder instead of help one to be worth-while to the world must be told that there is "positively no admittance."
Among the things one must not afford permission to pass the bars is the thought that some associate may have said or done something that seemed like a slight or an injury. No man can afford to injure another, but any man can better afford to be injured than to allow his thoughts to dwell on the injury, to brood over it, until he is in a degree unfitted for his work. Far better is it to be like a father who said to his son when the latter, years after the commission of the deed, was speaking of his sorrow that he had grieved his father so: "Son, you must be dreaming; I don't recall the incident."
Then one must know when to forget evil things heard of another. Sometimes it is necessary to remember such facts, but so often the insinuations made concerning other people are not worth consideration, because they are not true. Even where there is ground for them, they are not proper subjects for thought and remembrance.
It is best to forget past achievements, unless they are made stepping-stones to greater achievements, spurs to work that could never be done without them. Yet how often the temptation comes to gloat in thought over these things, and over the good things said of one because of them, while opportunities for greater things are passed by. Thus a school-boy thought with delight of a word of commendation from his teacher when he ought to have been giving attention to the recitation of the pupil next to him; the result was a reprimand that stung. A soldier in the trenches has no time to gaze in admiration at the medal he has won by valor when at any moment there may sound the call to deeds of still greater valor. No more should a civilian imperil future success by failure to forget "the things which are behind."
The individual who refuses to forget a kindness he has done to someone else is another cumberer of the ground. A safe rule is, never forget a kindness received from another, but forget at once a kindness done to another. It is not difficult to sympathize with the youth who, after being reminded for the twentieth time by his brother of a trip to New Orleans for which the brother had paid out of his savings, said, "Yes, and I wish I had never taken a cent of the money!"
A thing to be forgotten always is the off-color story with which some people persist in polluting the atmosphere. Unfortunately there are always to be found folks like the young man of whom Donald Hankey said "He talks about things that I won't even think." When such talk is heard, don't think of it. If you do, you are apt to think of it again and again, until, perhaps, you will be telling it to some one else. And no one wants to be remembered as was the business man, proposed for the presidency of a great concern, of whom one said, "No, don't let's have him; he has earned a reputation for telling questionable stories."
If a good memory is to be a good servant, it must be trained to remember only the things that are helpful. And that takes courage!
V
GETTING RID OF EVIL
One of the trying disappointments of daily life comes with the discovery that something on which we have been depending is no longer worthy of confidence, because a foreign substance, some adulterant, has been mixed with it, without our knowledge. This seemed to be the case perhaps more than ever before during the recent days of war when a severe strain was put on the products of nearly every kind.
In many parts of the country those who were compelled to replenish their coal supply during the worst weather of a severe winter complained because the anthracite then secured gave out little heat; it contained such a large proportion of culm or other waste product which, in ordinary times, is carefully removed before shipment, that it could not do its work properly.
Disappointed in their anthracite, some turned to bituminous coal, only to find that at least fifty per cent, of a shipment received during the days of stress was made up of rock and clay.
Experience with the coal should have prepared one of the purchasers for his disappointment in a restaurant where he had been accustomed to be served with a splendid oyster stew. But he was surprised and displeased when he found that at least one-third of the milk which should have gone into the stew had been displaced by water.
At home that evening the same man was told more of the activity of dealers who permit impurities to interfere with the comfort of those who like pure products; the grocer had that day sent a package of soup beans which contained at least ten per cent. of gravel.
It is easy to appreciate the disappointment and embarrassment that come from the failure of the coal dealer, the restaurant keeper or the grocer to supply us with pure food and fuel. Then isn't it strange that we are apt to pay so little attention to the adulterants in character that are the cause of so much of the world's sorrow? That is to say, it seems odd that we pay so little attention to the things in our own lives that interfere; we are not apt to find it a difficult matter to rail at others because they permit evil to mix with good in their lives. Our vision is so much better when we are looking at motes in others than when we are looking straight past the beams in our own make-up.
There is daily need for each one of us to ask God for grace to go on a hunt for the evil that adulterates his own life, making it a disappointment to others and a cause of sorrow to God. Those who are bold enough to scrutinize themselves without flinching will be apt to find not merely things that are unquestionably evil, but they will be dismayed to see that even much of the good in which they have been taking comfort is adulterated with evil—as, for instance, the deed of helpfulness performed for a friend with the unconscious thought, "Some day he may be able to do something for me," or the gift made to a needy cause, accompanied by the assurance that the treasurer of the fund is one whom we particularly wish to impress with our liberality so that possibly a future benefit will come from him to us.
The adulterants of evil mixed with the good in our lives must be removed. And there is just one way to get rid of them—to submit ourselves to the sifting of Him who not only knows the good from the evil, the wheat from the chaff, but will also show the way to retain the wheat and throw out the chaff.
Of course one does not have to yield himself to Christ's sifting. But of one thing we can be sure; there will be a sifting. If Christ is not invited to do the work, the Devil will take up the task. But his purpose in sifting is always to retain the evil, and drive out all the good.
God asks for "pure religion and undefiled." There is no place in his calculations for adulterants. Be courageous, and get rid of them!
VI
LOOKING BEYOND MONEY
Money is a good thing, when it is properly secured and properly used. But there are better things than money. Honor is better, and loving service, and thoughtful consideration of others.
This was the lesson taught by the life of a man who was a shareholder in a mining company that was about to go out of business. The shareholders would sustain very heavy losses, so a friend who knew the secrets of the company determined to warn this man, whom everybody liked. The hint was given that it would be to his advantage to sell quickly. "Why?" asked Mr. N. "Well, you know, the value of the mines is greatly depreciated." "When I bought the shares I took the risk." "Yes, but now you should take the opportunity of selling while you can, so as not to lose anything." "And supposing I don't sell, what then?" "Then you will probably lose all you have." "And if I do sell, somebody else will lose instead of me?" "Yes, I suppose so." "Do you suppose Jesus Christ would sell out?" "That is hardly a fair question. I suppose he would not." "I am a Christian," said Mr. N., "and I wish to follow my Master, therefore I shall not sell." He did not, and soon after lost everything, and had to begin life again.
This shareholder would have appreciated Professor A. H. Buchanan, who was for forty years professor of mathematics in Cumberland University, Tennessee. After his death it was told of him that at one time he was offered an appointment in government service to which a $3,000 salary attached. His income as professor in a church college was $600 a year. But he saw more chance to make his life count for Christian things in the professor's place than in public service, so he declined the $3000 and stayed by the $600. One who spoke of these facts in the professor's life said, in comment:
"If he had taken the $3,000, everybody would have regarded him as an ordinary sort of man. Now everybody who has heard of Professor Buchanan's exceptional devotion appreciates that he was a very extraordinary man. A very cheap person indeed is capable of accepting a bigger salary."
At about the time of the death of this professor of mathematics a daily paper mentioned a civil engineer who was transforming the appearance of a western city, and said of him: "Two or three times he has had chances to get three or four times his present salary. Each time he has said: 'No, my work is here; I haven't finished it. The money doesn't count, so I shall stick here and finish my work.'"
After the death of a famous minister in St. Louis a story was told of him that he had not allowed to be known widely during his lifetime. This was the romantic tale, as related by a writer in The New York Sun:
"When a young man, he found to his amazement among his father's papers a deed to five thousand eight hundred and eighty-three acres of land, located in what is known as West Virginia. This deed was a great surprise to all who saw or heard of it. Putting this deed in his pocket, young Palmore, the only heir to the property, made a trip to West Virginia, to look over his vast estate, which was far in the interior.
"Starting from the city of Charleston, West Virginia, he drove in a buggy into the region where his plantation was located. He traced the boundaries of his property and found that hundreds of families had settled on it without any right to it, but were living as if secure in the possession of their separate little patches of territory. He found that beneath the surface of this land there was almost limitless wealth, but the multitudes who had built themselves humble homes on the surface did not know of it, and had been living thus in undisturbed possession for a number of years. He quietly walked about at night and looked through the windows at the parents and children living on his estate. Great lawyers were ready to inaugurate legal proceedings that would have made him a millionaire, and such legal proceedings would doubtless have been instituted if the heir in person had not visited the scene of his great estate. As he dreamed in the nighttime about dispossessing such a multitude of people of their humble homes, he began to feel that, instead of such a fortune being a blessing, an estate received at such an expense would be a burden.
"After earnest prayer and sleepless hours in the midst of his vast acres, he was seized with the conviction that each member of this multitude of families living on his property needed it more than did the heir, and there and then he made up his mind that he would leave them in quiet possession of his estate."
The reporter who related the story said that the man had been called a fool, and commented, "He was God's fool."
Then he said that the incident he had related would have been unbelievable if it had not been so well attested. But why unbelievable? Is it because of the common idea that "every man has his price," that it is unthinkable that a sane man would let a fortune that he could claim honestly slip through his fingers?
Perhaps it is true that every man has his price. However, if this snarl of the pessimist is to have universal application, the price must be understood to be—in many instances—not selfish gratification, but the opportunity for courageous service. There are men and women who can be won by such an opportunity who cannot be reached by any argument of mere private advantage. Such people silence the complaints of the croaker and command the confidence of those who are struggling to help their fellows.
Louis Agassiz, the naturalist, was such a man. "I have no time to make money," was his remark when urged by a friend to turn aside from the important work of the moment to an easy, lucrative task. His reason was thus explained at another time: "I have made it the rule of my life to abandon any intellectual pursuit the moment it becomes commercially valuable." It was his idea that there were many who would then be willing to carry on work he had begun.
A contrast is presented by the famous inventor who, early in life, made it a rule never to give himself to any activity in which there was no prospect of financial gain. His first question was not, "Does the public need this invention?" but "Is there money in it?" Having answered to his satisfaction, he was ready to go ahead.
The world could not well have spared either of these men, for both rendered valuable service. But, judging from the stories of their careers, there was more joy in the life of the naturalist, who, satisfied to earn a living, thought most of serving his fellows, than in the life of the inventor before whose eyes the dollar continually loomed large. The counting-house measure of life is not the most satisfying nor is it the most useful.
That was the notion of Jacob Riis, of whom a minister who was devoting his life to the interest of young working men near his church once asked if such effort was merely thrown away, if he was pocketing himself. "Pocketing yourself, are you?" Riis replied. "Stick to your pocket. It is a pretty good pocket to be in. Out of such a pocket, worked in the way you are working it, will come healing for the ills of the day that now possess us. I would rather be in such a pocket, working for the Lord, than in a $1,000,000 church, working for the applause of a congregation."
Those who are familiar with inside history at Washington say that the day after Garfield's election as President, a dispatch was sent to Milton Wells, a Wisconsin preacher, whose vote in the convention had kept Garfield's name on the list of candidates to the very last, asking him if he would become governor of Arizona Territory. Mr. Wells answered: "I have a better office that I cannot leave. I am preaching here for $600 per year."
There was once a man named Paul who might have enjoyed position and power, if he had wished, but he chose instead a life of courageous service of which he was able once to write, without boasting:
"In labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly; in stripes above measure, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my countrymen, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness."
How could Paul bear all these things? They were enough to break down a dozen strong men. Probably he sometimes felt that he could not bear the burden any longer, but always there came to him the assurance of Christ, "My grace is sufficient for thee." Then he could bear anything; yet not he, but Christ, who lived in him. Thus his glory was not in his own strength but in his weakness, which made place in his life for the strength of Christ.
Until men and women learn how to gain strength in their weakness as Paul did, their lives will be unsatisfying, their days will be full of complaint. Their burdens, which seemed like mountains before learning to trust Christ, will be borne as easily as if they were feathers.
God does not promise to make us all dollar millionaires if we look at Him for strength in our weakness, but He does promise to make us all millionaires of faith and hope and courage. Paul was; we can be, too.
CHAPTER TWO
THE COURAGE THAT FACES OBSTACLES
"YOU may expect to spend the rest of your days tied to your chair."
Theodore Roosevelt's physician made this disconcerting announcement to his patient a few weeks before his death.
How would the courageous man receive an announcement like that? How would you receive it?
Let the words spoken in reply by the lion-hearted Roosevelt never be forgotten by others who struggle with difficulties:
"All right! I can work and live that way, too!"
Surely the triumphant words justified the characterization made by Herman Hagedorn of this colossal worker:
"He was frail; he made himself a mountain of courage."
At a dinner given to celebrate the worthy achievement of a public man, a guest spoke of him to a companion at table.
"No wonder he has been so well. Everything is in his favor: he is young, he is brilliant, he is in good health."
"In good health?" was the answering comment. "Where did you get that? For years he has been in wretched health; many a night he was unable to sleep except he knelt on the floor by the bedside and stretched himself from his waist across the bed. But it is not strange that you did not know, he has said nothing of his ailments; he is so full of courage himself that he makes everyone around him courageous."
I
LEARNING
When the famous Sioux Indian, Charles A. Eastman, was a boy, his father, who had learned the joys of civilized life, urged his son to secure an education. "I am glad that my son is brave and strong," he said to him. "I have come to start you on the White Man's way. I want you to grow to be a good man."
Then he urged his son, Ohiyesa, as he was called, to put on the civilized clothes he had brought with him. The boy rebelled at first; he had been accustomed to hate white men and everything that belonged to them. But when he reflected that they had done him no harm, after all, he decided to try on the curious garments.
Together father and son traveled toward the haunts of the white man. As they traveled Ohiyesa listened to tales of the wonderful inventions he would see. He was especially eager to look on a railroad train.
But even after he had gone with his father, he was reluctant to enter on his long training, until his father suggested that he make believe he was starting on a long war-path, from which there could be no honorable return until his course was completed. Entering into the spirit of the proposal, the Indian lad began his schooling at Flandreau Indian Agency, and persisted for twelve long years. After graduating from college he devoted himself to his people, and in many years since has accomplished wonders for them, teaching them the patience he had himself learned, and enabling them to understand that such patience and persistence always brings its reward.
The experience of Isaac Pitman, the inventor of shorthand, was different, yet, after all, it was much the same. As a boy he had little education. But soon after he went to work he made up his mind to supply the lack. The record of how he did this is one of the most remarkable instances of courageous patience on record.
The long office hours at his place of employment, from six in the morning until six at night, made study difficult, but he showed conclusively that where there is a will there is a way, and that he had the will. He was accustomed to leave his bed at four, that he might study two hours before the beginning of the day's work. Two hours in the evening also were set apart for study. Sometimes it happened that work at the factory was light, and the young clerk was excused for the morning. Instead of taking the time for sport, it was his habit to take a book with him into the fields or under the trees.
Thomas Allen Reid, in his biography of Pitman says: "One of the books which he made his companion in morning walks into the country was Lennie's Grammar. The conjugation of verbs, list of irregular verbs, adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions, and the thirty-six rules of syntax, he committed to memory so that he could repeat them in order. The study of the books gave him a transparent English style."
His father was a subscriber to the local library. "I went regularly to the library for fresh supplies of books," Isaac said, in 1863, "and thus read most of the English classics. I think I was quite as familiar with Addison, and Sir Roger, and Will Honeycomb, and all the Club, as I was with my own brothers and sisters . . . and when reading The Spectator at that early age, I wished that I might be able to do something in letters."
Before he left school he formed the habit of copying choice pieces of poetry and prose into a little book which he kept in his pocket. These bits he would commit to memory when he had leisure. A later pocket companion contained a neatly written copy of Valpey's Greek Grammar, as far as the syntax, which he committed to memory. In his morning walks in 1832 he committed to memory the first fourteen chapters of Proverbs. He would not undertake a fresh chapter until he had repeated the preceding one without hesitation.
As most of his knowledge of words was gained from books, he had difficulty in pronunciation. "His method of overcoming the deficiency was ingenious," his biographer wrote. "Again and again he read 'Paradise Lost.' Careful attention to the meter enabled him to correct his faulty pronunciation of many words. Words not found in the poem he discovered in the dictionary. With unusual courage he decided to read through Walker's Dictionary, fixing his mind on words new to him and on the spelling and pronunciation of familiar terms. On the pages of one of his pocket-books he copied all words he had been in the habit of mispronouncing. Although there were more than two thousand of these words, the plan was carried out before he was seventeen."
The labor of writing out so many extracts from books led him to study the imperfect system of shorthand then current, and to develop the system that was to bear his name.
So many young people feel that they "simply cannot abide" the long process of getting an education; they give up when they are only a part of the way to the goal. But for most of them the day of bitter regret will come when they will wish that they had been more like Eastman or Pitman in their determination to be patient and persistent, to allow nothing to stand in the way of their purpose to fit themselves in the best possible manner for the serious business of life.
II
DEPENDING ON SELF
Young men just starting out in life nowadays, who find the path to success difficult, are more fortunate than some of those who struggled with hard times a century or more ago, because they are determined to make a self-respecting fight on their own merits. It was not always so; once nothing was thought of the effort made by an impecunious young man to throw himself on the generosity of one who had already achieved success. Then it was a habit of many authors to seek as a patron a man of influence and means who would help them live till their books were ready for the publisher, and then help to get the books before the public.
From letters of George Crabbe, a poet of some note in his century, asking Edmund Burke to become his patron, something of his story may be known. As a boy he was apprenticed to an apothecary; later he was proprietor of a small shop of his own. Business, neglected for books and writing, did not prosper. With his sister, his housekeeper, he "fasted with much fortitude." Then he went to London, with a capital of nine pounds, and starved some more. Months were spent in trying to enlist two patrons. At last, threatened with a prison for debt, he decided to try a third patron; and this was his procedure, as he himself described it:
"I looked as well as I could into every character that offered itself to my view, and resolved to apply where I found the most shining abilities, for I had learnt to distrust the humanity of weak people in all stations."
So he wrote to Edmund Burke, telling him that he could no longer be content to live in the home of poor people, who had kept him for nearly a year, and had lent him money for his current expenses. Describing himself as "one of those outcasts on the world, who are without a friend, without employment and without bread," he told of his vain appeal to another for gold to save him from prison, added that he had but one week to raise the necessary funds, and made his request.
"I appeal to you, sir, as a good, and, let me add, a great man. I have no other pretensions to your favor than that I am an unhappy one. It is not easy to support thoughts of confinement, and I am coward enough to dread such an end to my suspense . . . I will call upon you, sir, to-morrow, and if I have not the happiness to obtain credit with you I must submit to my fate . . . I have only to hope a speedy end to a life so unpromisingly begun . . . I can reap some consolation in looking to the end of it."
The appeal was successful. Edmund Burke became Crabbe's patron. The poet was glad to eat the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table, and submitted to many unpleasant slights and insinuations while he received the dole of charity.
That suing thus for a patron did not always have the effect of destroying an author's self-respect is shown by a letter written by Dr. Samuel Johnson to Lord Chesterfield. When, after years of hard labor, Dr. Johnson's dictionary was known to be ready for publication, Lord Chesterfield wrote for "The World" two flattering articles about the author, evidently thinking that the work would be dedicated to him. At once Dr. Johnson wrote:
"My Lord: When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your lordship, I . . . could not forbear to wish . . . that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending; but I found my attendance so little encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. . . .
"Seven years, my lord, have passed since I waited in your outward room, or was repulsed from your door, during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it at last to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement or one smile of favor. Such treatment I did not expect for I never had a patron before. . . . The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labor, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. . . . I have long awakened from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation, my lord,
"Your lordship's most humble, most obedient servant,
"Sam Johnson."
The lapse of a century has brought a change. Self-respecting, courageous young workers do not seek a patron to help them to fame. To-day they ask only to fight their own battles, win their own victories.
III
UNCOMPLAINING
Nor do courageous workers complain when little things go wrong.
"I don't know what I shall do if the mail does not come to-morrow. Think of being two days without a morning paper!"
The complaint was heard when railway traffic had been tied up by washouts on the railway. The inconvenience suffered by the speaker seemed to him very great. Though there had been no other interruption to the many comforts and conveniences to which he had been accustomed, the single difficulty made him lose his temper and spoiled his day.
When one is tempted to magnify such a small difficulty into a mountain it is worth while to look at things from the standpoint of a man whose life far from the centers of civilization makes him so independent of circumstances and surroundings that he can be cheerful even in the face of what seem like bitter privations.
A company of travelers in the forests of Canada thought that the knowledge of the most recent news was necessary to happiness. They learned their mistake when they reached the camp of a man from whom they expected to learn news more recent than the events reported in the paper the day they left civilization, seven weeks before. They felt sure that, as he lived on the trail, he would have seen some traveler who had left the railroad since their own departure.
When they asked him for late news from the States, he said he had some very recent news, and proceeded to tell of events eight months old! "Do you call that recent?" he was asked, in disgust.
"What's the matter with that?" was the wondering reply. "It only happened last fall, and there ain't been nobody through here since." And he contentedly resumed the task at which he had been engaged when interrupted by the demand for "recent" news.
On the same journey the travelers—whose story is told in "Trails in Western Canada"—showed that they were learning the lesson. Carelessness in handling a campfire caused a forest fire which threatened their food supply. They saved this, but lost their only axes. After a long search they found these in the embers, but the temper had been utterly ruined by the heat. Only a few hours before they felt that an axe was absolutely necessary not only to comfort but to life itself, yet when the ruined tools were found the travelers turned to their tasks without giving the disaster a second thought. They knew that there is always a way out of difficulty. They continued their expedition without an axe, and found that they managed very well.
The lesson was impressed still more by the attitude of a guide who spent a few days with them. Like many other people on vacation they allowed themselves to worry about finances. But their thoughts were set on a new track by the guide, who, after telling of the success in trapping grizzly bear and beaver which had enabled him to save a little money, said: "Life is too short to worry about money. If I lose all I have to-morrow, I can get a couple of bear traps and by next spring I'll be on my feet again. The mountains are always here, and I know where there is a bunch of bear and a colony of beaver, and I can get along out here, and live like a prince while those poor millionaires are lying awake at nights, lest someone come and steal their money."
Two other guides were engaged to pole the travelers' raft down the Fraser River. Nearly every day the cold rain fell in torrents, but the men were unmoved. "All day long they would stand in their wet clothes, their hands numb and blue from the cold as they handled their dripping poles; yet not a comment indicating discomfort is recalled. Physical annoyances, which in the city would bring an ambulance, scarcely are mentioned by them."
One day one of the men was asked what they did when they were sick. "Cain't say we ever are sick," was the reply. "The worst thing that ever happened to us, I reckon, was when Mort here had a bad tooth; but, after a day or two, we got sick of it, and took it out." That was all he thought worth saying about it till he was pressed for an account of the operation. "Oh, I looked through our dunnage bag," he said, "and found an old railroad spike. Mort held it against the tooth and I hit the head with a big rock, and knocked her out the first time."
His companion was unwilling to agree that this was the most trying experience. He told of a day when the man who had reported the tooth extraction, cut his foot severely with an axe. "Oh, that didn't bother us," the victim interrupted. "I just slapped on some spruce gum and never thought anything more about it." Asked how long he was laid up, the surprised answer was: "Laid up for that? We weren't laid up at all. Couldn't travel quite as fast for a day or two, but we didn't lose no time at that, for we traveled longer to make up."
Still another guide gave an object lesson in making light of difficulties when his horse fell on him, bruising one of his knees so that it swelled to an enormous size. The injured man made no complaint, though his companions were full of sympathy. He knew he could reduce the swelling by heroic remedies.
One day when traveling was unusually difficult, the guide cheered his employers by telling them of the fine camp he owned just ahead—"a house like a hotel," he said. And when the camp was reached he pointed proudly to "a great log with a few great pieces of bark and some cedar slivers stretched over the top." In this camp the night was spent, without blankets and in the rain. "But as no one seemed to consider this anything out of the ordinary, the travelers made no complaint."
Perhaps a taste of the wilderness is what we need when we become impatient of trifles and make ourselves miserable because everything does not go to suit us.
IV
PERSISTING
Failure camps on the trail of the man who is ready to give up because difficulties multiply. A representative of a large paper warehouse made up his mind to add to his list of customers a certain Michigan firm. Repeated rebuffs did not daunt him. Every sixty days he sent the firm a letter of invitation to buy his goods. During twenty-seven years one hundred and sixty-one letters were mailed without result. Then, in reply to the one hundred and sixty-second letter, the Michigan firm asked for quotations. These were given promptly, and two carloads of paper were sold. What if this letter writer had become discouraged before he wrote this final letter?
"I thought you were planning to complete your education," a friend said to a young man whom he had not seen for some time; "yet now you are clerking in a store. Perhaps, though, you are earning money for next year's expenses."
"No, I am earning money for this year's expenses," was the discouraged reply. "I did want an education, but I found it was too difficult to get what I sought, so I have decided to settle down."
Of course it is easier to give up than it is to push on in the face of difficulty, but the youth who pushes on is fitting himself to fill a man's place in the world, while the young man who is easily discouraged is fitting himself for nothing but disappointment. The world has no place for a quitter.
There is a tonic for young people who purpose to make the most of themselves in glimpses of a few college students who had the courage to face difficulty. One of these was an Italian boy, who was glad to beat carpets, wash windows, scrub kitchen floors, mow lawns, teach grammar, arithmetic and vocal exercises at a night school for foreigners. Then—as if his time was not fully occupied by these occupations—he made arrangements to care for a furnace and sift the ashes, in exchange for piano lessons. That student finished his preparatory course with credit, taking a prize for scholarship.
A seventeen-year-old boy wanted an education, but he had nine brothers and sisters at home, and he knew that he could look for no financial assistance from his parents. So he picked cotton at sixty cents a hundred pounds, sawed wood, cut weeds and scrubbed floors—and thus paid his expenses.
One student could not spare the money to pay his railroad fare to the school of his choice. But he had a pony. So he rode the pony the entire distance of five hundred miles, working for his expenses along the way.
A beginner in college was too full of grit to give up when bills came on him more heavily than he had expected. During the school year he did chores, rang the bell for the change of classes, did janitor work, and waited on table in restaurants. In the summer he found work on farms near by.
"No task is too difficult for the man with a purpose," declared a worker with young men, some of whom were ready to give up. "Two things are necessary if you would be successful," was another man's message to those whom he wished to inspire to do purposeful work. "First: know what you want to do. Second: do it."
Those who permit obstacles to stand in the way of the performance of tasks they know they ought to perform if they would make the most of themselves, need to take to heart the message given by a mother to her son when he was ready to give up the unequal struggle with poverty and physical infirmity. "Thou wilt have much to bear, many hardships to suffer," she said. "But mark what I say, we must not mind the trouble. During the first part of the night we must prepare the bed on which to stretch ourselves during the latter part."
Giving up after failure is always easier than trying again, but the men and women who count are those who will not be dismayed by failure. When J. Marion Sims, the famous surgeon, was beginning the practice of medicine, he proudly tacked an immense tin sign on the front of his office. Then he lost two patients, and pride and courage both failed him. "I just took down that long tin signboard from my door," he wrote in the story of his life. "There was an old well back of the house, covered over with boards. I went to the well, took that sign with me, dropped it in there, and covered the old well over again. I was no longer a doctor in the town." But fortunately he conquered discouragement, made a fresh beginning, and overcame tremendous obstacles. After his death a famous man said that if all his discoveries should be suppressed, it would be found that his own peculiar branch of surgery had gone backward at least twenty-five years.
Indomitable perseverance is necessary for the business man as for the professional man; and it will just as surely bring reward to those who are engaged in Christian work as to those who are seeking worldly honor. So when the uphill climb seems too difficult, there must be no faltering. Remember—as Christina Rossetti said—"We shall escape the uphill by never turning back."
In gathering material for a history of Charles V of Spain, a Spanish historian was painstaking in his researches. Finally he was able to tell the king's whereabouts on every day of his career, except for two weeks in 1538.
Then friends assured him that he had done his best. In all probability nothing of importance happened during those days. But the historian believed in being thorough to the end. So he delayed publication. For fifteen years he sought news of the missing fortnight. Finally, and reluctantly, when he was seventy-five years old, he published the book.
At length an American woman, studying in the archives of Spain, having learned of the lost days, resolved to find them. Among musty documents, in many libraries, she toiled. Then, by a woman's intuition, she was led to look for documents of a sort the Spanish historian had never thought of. And she found where the king was on some of those days. The news was sent to the historian, just in time for him to make additions to his inaugural address to be delivered on taking his seat in the Academy of History. In this address he rejoiced to give full credit for the discovery to the American.
But the woman was not satisfied; there was still a gap to be filled. She made further trials, and failed. Again intuition led her to documentary sources that had hardly been touched since they were filed away nearly three hundred years before. She succeeded, and now that bit of history is complete.
A well known writer for young people was also persistent in tracing a story to its source. When he came to America from his native Holland he heard for the first time the story of the Dutch hero who stopped the hole in the dike, a story unknown in Holland. He resolved to prove or disprove this. The record of his long search was published later. Not only did he prove the existence of the boy, but he proved that the boy's sister was a partner in the heroic deed. Thus the helpful story has been saved for future generations.
These incidents make interesting reading. But do they not do more? Surely it is unnecessary to urge the lesson of persistence in a task seriously undertaken. Often there is temptation to slight some worth-while task, after one has worked on it painstakingly for a time. "Why pay so much attention to detail?" is asked. "Surely no real harm will be done if I give less time to some of these things that seemed so important at the beginning!"
Fortunately there are multitudes of workers who are constitutionally unable to slight a task. The proofreader on a paper of large circulation is an example. It is a part of her work to prove statements made, to verify facts and figures, to see that these are altogether accurate. Once when there was an unusual pressure of work the editor suggested that she might wish to take certain things for granted, but she showed her conscientious thoroughness by performing the task to the end, according to the rules of the office, and in the face of weariness that was almost exhaustion.
It may not be given to you to be a historian. You may not be called upon to prove the story of a hero. It may not be your task to read proof or to verify manuscripts. But each one has a definite part in the work of the world and there is no one to whom the example of historian and proofreader is without value. All need to remember the truth in the assurance, "There is nothing so hard but search will find it out."
V
TOILING
Two young people were passing out of a building where they had just listened to a speaker of note.
"What a wonderful talk that was!" said one who found it a heavy cross to make the simplest address in public. "I wish I had such a gift of speech."
"It isn't a gift in his case; it is an acquirement," was the response. "If you had known that man five years ago, you would agree with me. When I first knew him he could not get up in a public meeting and make the simplest statement without floundering and stammering in a most pitiful manner. But he had made up his mind to be a public speaker, and he put himself through a severe course of discipline. To-day you see the result."
The biography of Dr. Herrick Johnson tells of courageous conquest of difficulties that seemed to block the way to success: "Hamilton College has always given great attention to public speaking and class orations. The high standard was set by a remarkably gifted man, Professor Mandeville, who instituted a system in the study of oratory and public speaking which has been known ever since, with some modification, as the 'Mandeville System.'"
"In 1853, Dr. Anson J. Upson was in the Mandevillian chair, and had lifted up to still greater height the standard of public speaking, and had awakened a great, inextinguishable enthusiasm for it. Not one of the boys who entered that year, and who were at that prize-speaking contest, could fail to be seized with the public-speaking craze. It especially met Herrick Johnson's taste and trend and gifts, and fired his highest aim. Probably there was nothing he wanted so much as the prize in his class at the next commencement. But unfortunately his standards and ideals of public speaking were just then as far as possible from the Mandevillian standard. He had acquired what was called a ministerial tone, and other faults fatal to any success, unless eradicated. The best speakers of the upper classes were the recognized and accepted 'drillers' of the new boys, who at once put themselves under their care and criticism. Every spring and fall a certain valley with a grove, north of the college, was the resort of the aspirants for success at this time. The woods would ring with their 'exercises' and strenuous declamation, and I presume it is the same to-day.
"Herrick Johnson had a magnificent voice, well-nigh ruined by his sins against the right method of using it. He soon saw that it was going to be essential for him to go down to the foundation of his wrong methods and break them all up and absolutely eradicate his 'tone.' It was no easy thing to do, but the young man was intensely ambitious, and so he worked with the greatest energy. He failed of an appointment on the 'best four' of his Freshman class. But he worked away throughout his Sophomore year and failed again. The upperclassmen saw his pluck, they recognized his grand voice, and they worked with him during his Junior year, until he had mastered the Mandevillian style, wholly eradicated his 'tone,' corrected all defects, and got his appointment for one of the best four speakers of the Junior year; and on the prize-speaking night of that commencement, he went on the platform conscious of his power and swept everything before him as the Junior prize speaker. It set the standard for that young man. Voice, manner, address, were all masterful and accounted easily for his great success as a public speaker through all his subsequent prominent and successful career in his profession."
A part of the good of "speaking a piece" is to try again, determined to retrieve failure. Success is not always a good thing for a boy or a girl, any more than for a man or a woman. The discipline of failure is sometimes needed. To fail is not always a calamity, if the failure leads to the correction of the faults that lead to failure. Whether it be speaking a piece or learning a lesson or facing a trying situation in business, no matter how many times one has failed, he needs to take to heart the message of Macbeth:
We fail!
But screw your courage to the sticking-point,
And we'll not fail.
Always there is a reward for those who fight against difficulties, who persist in their struggle even when failure follows failure. Everyday the glad story of the sequel to such persistent struggles is recorded. The records of commercial life, of school life, of home life are full of these.
VI
CONQUERING INFIRMITY
Of all obstacles that can stand in the way of courageous conquest, one of the most fatal, in the opinion of many, is blindness. Yet it is not necessary that the loss of the eyes should be the fatal handicap it is almost universally considered. It is a mistake to feel that when a worker has anything seriously and permanently wrong with his eyes he cannot be expected longer to perform tasks that are normal for one who has the full use of all his five senses. In fact, when we hear that a man is going blind we are apt to dismiss with a sigh his chance for continuing productive labor of any sort; we feel that there is little left for him but sitting resignedly in a chimney corner and listening to others read to him or patiently fingering the raised letters provided for the use of the blind.
In protest against this error a novelist has taken for his hero a young man who lost his sight. His friends pitied him, talked dolefully to him, promised to look after him in the days of incapacity. Of course he sank lower and lower in the doleful dumps. Then one came into his life who never seemed to notice his blindness, who talked to him as if he could see, who encouraged him to do things by taking it for granted that they would be performed. Her treatment proved effective; before long the blind man was learning self-reliance, and was well on the road to achievement.
The story was true to life for, times without number, blind men and women have shown their ability to work as effectively as if they could see. More than two hundred years ago a teacher in London named Richard Lucas lost his eyesight. Many of his friends thought that he would, of course, give up all idea of being a useful man; in that day few thought of the possibility of one so afflicted doing anything worth much. But the young man thought differently. He listened to others as they read to him, and completed his studies. He became the author of a dozen volumes, and was among the leaders of his day. One of his greatest works was the book "An Enquiry after Happiness." He knew how to be happy, in spite of his affliction, so he could teach others to follow him.
A little earlier there lived on the farm of a poor Irishman the boy Thomas Carolan. When he was five years old, he had smallpox, a disease that was much more virulent in those days than it is to-day because the treatment required was not understood. As a result the boy lost his sight. Soon he showed a taste for music, and he was able to take a few lessons, in spite of the poverty at home. As a young man he composed hundreds of pieces of music, and it has been said of him that he contributed much towards correcting and enriching the style of national Irish music.
Another youthful victim of smallpox was Thomas Blacklock, the son of a bricklayer in Scotland. "He can't be an artisan now," his friends said. But it did not occur to them that he could be a professional man. His father read him poetry and essays. When he was only twelve the boy began to write poetry in imitation of those whose verses he had heard. After his father's death, when the blind boy was but nineteen, he was more than ever dependent on himself. By the help of a friend he was enabled to go to school for a time. Then he became an author, and, later, a famous preacher. Often, as he walked about, a favorite dog preceded him. On one occasion he heard the hollow sound of the dog's tread on the board covering a deep well, and just in time to avoid stepping on the board himself. The covering was so rotten that he would surely have fallen into the water.
As a boy Francis Huber, of Geneva, Switzerland, was a great student. He insisted on reading by the feeble light of a lamp, or by the light of the moon, even when he was urged not to do so, and the result was blindness. A few years later he married one who rejoiced to be "his companion, his secretary and his observer." He became the greatest authority of his day on bees, although he knew nothing of the subject until after his misfortune. The strange thing is that all his conclusions were based on observation. Among other things he studied the function of the wax, the construction of their combs, the bees' senses and their ability to ventilate the hive by means of their wings. In recognition of his work he was given membership in a number of learned societies. His name must always be connected with the history of early bee investigation.
Not long after the close of the American Revolution James Holman, a British naval officer, lost his eyesight while in Africa. He was then about twenty-five years old. Later he became one of the best known travelers of his day. The world was told of his travels in lectures and in books, and others were also inspired to travel. "What is the use of traveling to one who cannot see?" he was asked at one time. "Does every traveler see all he describes?" he replied. He said that he felt sure he visited, when on his travels, as many interesting places as others, and that, by having the things described to him on the spot, he could form as correct a judgment as his own sight would have enabled him to do.
In 1779 Richmond, Virginia, gave birth to James Wilson, who lost his sight when he was four years old, because of smallpox. He was then on shipboard, and was taken to Belfast, Ireland, where he grew to manhood. When a boy he delivered newspapers to subscribers who lived as far as five miles from the city. When fifteen he used part of his earnings to buy books which he persuaded other boys to read to him. At twenty-one he entered an institution for the blind, for fuller instruction. Then he joined with a circle of mechanics in forming a reading society. One friend promised to read to him every evening such books as he could procure. The hours for reading were from nine to one every night in summer and from seven to eleven every night in the winter. "Often I have traveled three or four miles, in a severe winter night, to be at my post in time," he said once. "Perished with cold and drenched with rain, I have many a time sat down and listened for several hours together to the writings of Plutarch, Rollins, or Clarendon." After seven or eight years of this training, he was "acquainted with almost every work in the English language" his biographer says, perhaps a little extravagantly. His education he used in literary work.
B. B. Bowen was a Massachusetts boy just a century ago. When a babe he lost his sight. In 1833 Dr. Howe—husband of Julia Ward Howe—selected him as one of six blind boys on whom he was to make the first experiments in the instruction of the blind. Later he wrote a book of which eighteen thousand copies were sold.
Another of the men who proved the loss of sight was not a bar to successful work was Thomas R. Lounsbury, the Yale scholar whose studies in Chaucer and Shakespeare made him famous. Toward the close of his busy life he was engaged in a critical study of Tennyson, preparatory to writing an exhaustive book on the life of the great poet. He did not live to complete the work, but he left it in such shape that a friend was able to put it in the hands of the publishers.
In the Introduction to the biography this friend told of the courageous manner in which Professor Lounsbury faced threatening blindness and continued his writing in spite of the danger. We are told that his eyes, never very good, failed him for close and prolonged work. "At best he could depend upon them for no more than two or three hours a day. Sometimes he could not depend upon them at all. That he might not subject them to undue strain, he acquired the habit of writing in the dark. Night after night, using a pencil on coarse paper, he would sketch a series of paragraphs for consideration in the morning. This was almost invariably his custom in later years. Needless to say, these rough drafts are difficult reading for an outsider. Though the lines could be kept reasonably straight, it was impossible for a man enveloped in darkness to dot an i or to cross a t. Moreover, many words were abbreviated, and numerous sentences were left half written out. Every detail, however, was perfectly plain to the author himself. With these detached slips of paper and voluminous notes before him, he composed on a typewriter his various chapters, putting the paragraphs in logical sequence."
Francis Parkman, the historian who made the Indian wars real to fascinated readers, was a physical wreck on the completion of "The Oregon Trail," when he was but twenty-five years old. He could not write even his own name, except with his eyes closed; he was unable to fix his mind on a subject, except for very brief intervals, and his nervous system was so exhausted that any effort was a burden. But he would not give up. During the weary days of darkness he thought out the story of the conspiracy of Pontiac and decided to write it. Physicians warned him that the results would be disastrous, yet he felt that nothing could do him more harm than an idle, purposeless life.
One of his chief difficulties he solved in an ingenious manner. In a manuscript, published after his death, his plan was described:
"He caused a wooden frame to be constructed of the size and shape of a sheet of letter paper. Stout wires were fixed horizontally across it, half an inch apart, movable back of thick pasteboard fitted behind them. The paper for writing was placed between the pasteboard and wires, guided by which and using a black-lead crayon, he could write not illegibly with closed eyes."
This contrivance, with improvements, he used for about forty years of semi-blindness.
The documents on which he depended for his facts were read to him, though sometimes for days he could not listen, and then perhaps only for half an hour at a time. As he listened to the reading he made notes with closed eyes. Then he turned over in his mind what he had heard and laboriously wrote a few lines. For months he penned an average of only three or four lines a day. Later he was able to work more rapidly and he completed the book in two years and a half. No publisher was found who was willing to bear the expense of issuing the volume, and the young man paid for the plates himself.
Friends thought that now he would have to give up. His eyes were still troubling him, he became lame, his head felt as if great bands of iron were fastened about it, and frequently he did not sleep more than an hour or two a night. Then came the death of his wife, on whom he had depended for some years. At one time his physician warned him that he had not more than six months to live. But when a friend said that he had nothing more to live for, he made the man understand that he was not ready to hoist the white flag.
He lived for forty-five years after it was thought that he could never use his eyes again, and during all this time he worked steadily and patiently, accomplishing what would have been a large task for a man who had the full use of all his powers.
An Englishman was told by his physician he could never see again. For a time the news weighed heavily upon him. Afterward he said: "I remained silent for a moment, thinking seriously, and then, summoning up all the grit I possessed, I said, 'If God wills it, He knows best. What must be will be. And,' I added, putting my hand up to a tear that trickled down my face, 'God helping me, this is the last tear I shall ever shed for my blindness.'" It was. He secured the degrees of doctor of philosophy and master of arts. He was a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Chemical Society. He made many valuable scientific discoveries and inventions, saved a millionaire's life, and received the largest fee ever awarded any doctor—$250,000.
To these men difficulties were a challenge to courage. They accepted the challenge and proved themselves superior to circumstances. Thus their lives became a challenge to the millions of their countrymen who read of their triumph.
CHAPTER THREE
THE COURAGE OF INDUSTRY
ANYBODY can drift, but only the man or woman of courage can breast the current, can fight on upstream.
It is so easy to be idle or to work listlessly. Average folks drift heedlessly into occupations in which they have no special interest and for which they have as little fitness. Most people waste their evenings or use them to little profit: it never occurs to them that each day they waste precious hours. They give more thought to schemes to do less work than to attempts to increase output.
And so they show their weakness, their unfitness for bearing responsibility, their cowardice when the world is calling for courage.
Worth-while work demands the finest kind of courage, and with perfect fairness work gives back courage to those who put courage into it.
I
BEGINNING
"Yes, he's a right good worker, when you once get him started," a country newspaper editor said to a friend who was inquiring about a boy who had been in the office three months. "Watch him now; you'll see what I mean."
The boy had just brought from the express office the package of "patent insides," as the papers for the weekly edition of the newspaper, already half printed in the nearby city, were called. With a sigh he dragged these up the stairs and laid them on the folding table. With another sigh he contemplated the pile and thought how much time would be required to fold the eight hundred papers. After lengthy calculation he stopped to read a column of jokes from the top paper in the pile. At least five minutes passed before the first paper was folded. At the end of ten minutes he had succeeded in folding perhaps twenty-five papers. When the noon hour arrived not one third of the task was completed.
While he ate his lunch he was thinking of the dread ordeal of the afternoon—six hundred more papers to be folded! Would he ever be done? He was still pitying himself as he walked slowly back to the office. Just before reaching the doorway into which he must turn, he spied an acquaintance. He made his way over to the boy who had attracted him, not because he had anything to say to him, but that he might delay a little longer the moment of beginning work at the folding table.
"What are you going to do?" he asked idly of the boy, who had taken off his coat and was rolling up his sleeves.
"The boss wants me to sort that lot of old iron," was the reply.
"What, that huge pile! It will take you a week, won't it? Just think how much of it there is!"
"No, there isn't time to think how much of it there is," was the reply. "And what would be the good? Not a bit of use getting discouraged at the very start, and that is what would happen if I didn't pitch in hard. The job is going to be done before night—that is, if I'm not interrupted by too many loafers coming in to ask fool questions."
The boy from the printing office was about to resent this speech of the boy at the iron pile, but he thought better of it. "Perhaps there is something in what he says," he said to himself, as he went up the stairs. "Suppose I try to pitch in hard."
So he surprised the foreman by beginning at the pile of six hundred papers as if he was to be sent to a ball game when he finished. And he surprised himself by finishing his task in a little more than an hour.
The lesson he learned that day stood him in good stead when later he was taking his first difficult examination in a technical school. His neighbor stopped to look over the paper from beginning to end, and was heard to mutter, "How do they expect us to get through ten questions like these in an hour's time?" The boy from the printing office had no time for such an inquiry, but began work at once on the first question, without troubling himself about those that came later until he was ready for them.
So it was when, his technical course completed, he was confronted by his first great railroad task, the clearing up of a wreck that looked to his assistants like an inextricable tangle. After one good look at it he pitched in for all he was worth, thus inspiring the men who had felt the task was impossible, and within a few hours the tracks were clear.
The ability to pitch in at once on a hard job is one characteristic of the man who accomplishes tasks that make others sit up and take notice. John Shaw Billings, the famous librarian, had this ability. To a friend who praised him for the performance of what others thought to be a most difficult task, he said:
"I'll let you into the secret—it is nothing really difficult if you only begin. Some people contemplate a task until it looks so big it seems impossible, but I just begin, and it gets done somehow. There would be no coral islands if the first bug sat down and began to wonder how the job was to be done."
II
PURPOSE FORMING
One of the interesting points the fascinated reader of biography comes to look for is the first hint of the formation of the purpose that later characterized the life of the subject. There is infinite variety, but in every case there is apt to be something that takes the purposeful reader back to the days when his own ambition was taking shape.
For instance, there is Daniel Boone. One would not be apt to select him as an example of one whose life was ruled by a purpose deliberately formed and adhered to for many years. Yet he had his vision of what he desired to accomplish when, at twenty-one years of age, he was marching from North Carolina to Pennsylvania to join Braddock's company. On the way he met John Finley, a hunter who had traveled through Ohio and into the wild regions to the south. His tale of Kentucky fired Boone's imagination, and the two men planned to go there just as soon as the trip to Fort Duquesne was at an end. It proved impossible to carry out the plan for many years, but Boone never lost sight of his purpose, and ultimately he carved out the Wilderness Road and opened the way for the pioneers to seek homes in the Kentucky Wilderness.
Alexander Hamilton was but twelve years old when he wrote from his home in St. Croix, in the West Indies, to a friend in America:
"I contemn the grovelling condition of a clerk, or the like, to which my fortune condemns me, and would willingly risk my life, though not my character, to exalt my station. I am confident, Ned, that my youth excludes me from any hope of immediate preferment, nor do I desire it, but I mean to prepare the way for futurity."
Not for a day did he lose sight of his purpose. The opportunity he sought came years later. He sailed for America, and began the career that led to usefulness and fame.
As a boy Robert Fulton was ambitious. He had two dreams. He wished to go to Europe to study art, and he wished to buy a farm for his widowed mother. For these objects he saved every dollar he could. On his twenty-first birthday he took his mother and sister to the home he had bought for them, and later in the same year he sailed for Europe.
When Peter Cooper was making his way against odds in New York City he felt the need of an education. But he had to work by day and there was no night school. Night after night he studied by the light of a tallow candle. And while he studied, his life purpose was formed: some day he would make it easy for apprentice boys to secure an education after working hours. Many years passed before he was able to carry this purpose into effect. By this time the apprentice system had been displaced, but he felt that young people still needed the school he had in mind. In 1859, nearly fifty years after his own boyhood struggle, he founded Cooper Union, in which thousands have had the opportunity "to open the volume of Nature by the light of truth—so unveiling the laws and methods of Deity that the young may see the beauties of creation, enjoy its blessings and learn to love the Being from whom cometh every good and perfect gift."
As a boy Abraham Lincoln made up his mind "to live like Washington." He was twenty-two years old when, in New Orleans,—where he had taken a flatboat loaded with produce—he saw a slave auction and spoke the never-to-be-forgotten words: "If ever I get a chance to hit that thing, I'll hit it hard." Thirty-five years later came his chance, and he did "hit that thing hard" with the Emancipation Proclamation.
Alexander Graham Bell's life ambition was to teach deaf children how to articulate. Funds were short. That he might have more funds he engaged in experiments that led to the invention of the telephone. When the telephone instrument was given the attention it deserved at the Philadelphia Centennial of 1876, the inventor wrote triumphantly to his parents: "Now I shall have the money to promote the teaching of speech to deaf children."
James Stewart, the Scotch boy who became a famous missionary in South Africa, was fifteen years old when, one day while following the plow in Perthshire, he began to brood over the future. "What was it to be?" The question flashed across his mind, "Might I not make more of my life than by remaining here?" Then he said, "God helping me, I will be a missionary." At another time, while hunting with a cousin, he said "Jim, I shall never be satisfied till I am in Africa with a Bible in my pocket and a rifle on my shoulder, to supply my wants."
James Robertson was a school teacher in Canada when he became a Christian. On the Sunday he was to take his vows as a follower of Christ, he walked two miles to church with a friend who has told of his memories of the day thus:
"As we went along the Governor's Road there was a bush, 'Light's Woods,' on the south side of the road. Robertson suggested that we turn aside into the bush, not saying for what purpose. We penetrated it a short distance, when, with a rising hill on our right and on comparatively level ground, the tall maples waving their lovely heads far above us, and the stillness of the calm, sunny day impressing us with a sense of the awful, we came to a large stone. Robertson proposed that we engage in prayer. We knelt down together. He prayed that he might be true to the vows he was about to take, true to God and ever faithful in his service."
From that day the young man's purpose was inflexible. He would be a minister. He did not dream of conspicuous places in the church. When the temptations came to seek place and position, he wrote to Miss Cowing, who had promised to be his wife, "We are no longer our own. The time for self is gone for us."
William Duncan likewise was tempted to seek a position of prominence. When he decided to become a missionary, his employers sought to dissuade him. "You have one of the keenest brains in England," one of them said. "Don't you see you are making a fool of yourself?" "Fool or no fool, my mind is made up, and nothing can change it," was the positive reply. And he set his face like a flint, and in time began the wonderful work that has written his name indelibly in the history of the Indians of Western Canada and Alaska.
Washington Gladden was a country newspaper man in Owego, New York, when he united with the church, and began to make definite plans for a larger future than he had yet dreamed of. First he went to the Academy and then to college, with the ministry always in view.
George Grenfell, who became a missionary in Africa, was thirteen years old when he began to think of devoting his life to work for others. The reading of Livingstone's first book turned his thoughts to Africa.
William Waddell was fifteen years old when he became a Christian. At the time he was working for a ship-joiner at Clydebank, Scotland. The ambition took possession of him to become a missionary to Africa. Neither lack of education nor scarcity of funds was allowed to stand in his way. He kept at his work until he saw an advertisement asking for men to go to the Orange Free State to assist in building a church. He volunteered, and, as a layman and a mechanic, began his wonderful career in Africa.
David Lloyd-George was an orphan in Wales when he determined to be a lawyer. So he read, under the guidance of his shoemaker uncle, and when he was fourteen he was ready for the preliminary examination. For six years more he continued his preparation. Before he was twenty-one he set out on the career that has made him the leader to whom King and people of England alike turned eagerly.
These men found their place and did their work, not because they sought great things for themselves, but because they lived in the spirit of the advice given by a celebrated Canadian to a company of young people:
"You cannot all attain high positions: there are not enough to go around. You cannot all be preachers or premiers, but you can all do thoroughly and well what is set you to do, and so fit yourselves for some higher duty, and thus by industry and fidelity and kindness you can fill your sphere in life and at last receive the 'Well done' of your Lord."
III
USING TIME WISELY
A remark made by an acquaintance in the street car showed such familiarity with the work and trials of the busy conductor that inquiry followed.
"Yes, I was a conductor once," the man said, "but I had my eye on something else. At night I took a business course, and soon was able to take a position with a railroad company."
"That was fine!" was the answering comment. "How you must have enjoyed resting on your oars as you reaped the fruits of extra toil."
"Enjoyment—yes! But rest—no!" came the reply. "I wasn't done. I still had my evenings, and I kept on studying. The things I learned in these extra hours came in handy when the Superintendent asked me to become his secretary."
Service in the railroad office was interrupted by enlistment in the army, although the worker was well beyond the age of the draft. "How could I think of anything but service at the front?" he said, with a matter-of-fact accent. While in the service the habit of study in spare hours persisted; becoming familiar with the military manual he attracted the attention of his officers, and was marked for added responsibility. At the close of the war he resumed his work for the railroad and entered a technical school which provides night courses for the ambitious.
Forty years of age, and still learning!
An employer has written of an employee who, ten years ago, was securing fifteen dollars per week. But he was studying, and he soon attracted the attention of the head of the business, who called him "a rough diamond." He knew that the ambitious man seemed to lack some of the vital elements of success. But he watched him as he took evening courses in business psychology and salesmanship. "This man is paid by me to-day from $12,500 to $15,000 a year," was the gratifying conclusion of the employer's story.
A great executive recently told in a magazine article of a young man in the office of his employment director who attracted attention because of an exceptionally pleasing personal appearance. Before the director saw him the executive asked him what he was studying. "When I left school," was the reply, made with something of a sneer, "I promised myself I would never open a book again as long as I lived, and I'm keeping my promise."
The executive was about to leave the office for a two weeks' vacation. First, however, he wrote a few words about the applicant, placed them in a sealed envelope, and left this with the employment director, to be kept for him. On his return he asked about the applicant, by name. The answer came, with prompt disgust:
"That fellow was the limit! Fired him two days after he was hired. Dead from the neck up!"
Then the sealed letter was produced and the message enclosed was read:
"You will hire A—— H—— on his looks. Within two weeks you will fire him. He's dead from his neck."
A writer in Association Men has made a comparison between two men, and the way they spent their leisure:
"Here is my friend Chris Hall—that is not his real name, but I assure you he is a real person. I like Chris, and so does everybody who knows him. He is honest and kind and clean, but in spite of these splendid characteristics he never makes progress. Five years ago he was promoted to his present position, and he draws as salary just about what he did then. And there is no prospect that he will ever draw much more. Yet he could make himself worth four times as much in a very short while—$200 a week instead of $50—if he would only fit himself for the job ahead. But he lives entirely in the present. Perhaps the best way to describe him is to give his diary for a week, a record of how he spent his time when not actually working. And, please notice that everything he did was perfectly legitimate and honorable; but also notice, that everything was for immediate personal pleasure:
Monday—Rainy evening; went to bed early after playing a while with the kids.
Tuesday—Strolled over to see Mollie's brother, who is just back from France; he looks well but would not talk much about the fighting; advised him not to hurry about getting a job, as he deserved a good long spell of rest after the hard campaign.
Wednesday—Left office early; first big league game this year; went around to the club and talked it all over with the boys after supper.
Thursday—Office closed all day on account of parade of returning troops; took Mollie and children to see it; awfully tired and went to bed early.
Friday—Sold my two Liberty Bonds which I had bought on installments; Mollie needed summer dresses and there were several small debts I had to pay; took Mollie to the movies after supper.
Saturday (afternoon)—Whole family went to Seaside Park by steamer—children enjoyed it for a while but soon got tired and fretful; what with the heat and the crowds and the late hour of getting home it really didn't pay.
Sunday—In bed till nearly noon; read the papers; changed the soil in Mollie's potted plants; afternoon, Tom and his wife and Charlie Nichols and his best girl came over and all stayed to supper; strolled over to Mother's and found everyone there.
"Over against that let me put a few lines from the diary of Elihu Burritt:
Monday—Headache; 40 lines Cuvier's 'Theory of the Earth'; 64 pages French; 11 hours forging.
Tuesday—60 lines Hebrew; 30 pages French; 10 pages Cuvier; 8 lines Syriac; 10 lines Danish; 10 lines Bohemian; 9 lines Polish; 15 names of stars; 10 hours forging.