own character; our will, by influencing some of our circumstances, being able to modify our future habits or capacities of willing.”
How is character made up, except by our choices and our refusals? We select from life what we choose. We resemble insects which assume the color of the leaves and plants they feed upon, for sooner or later we become like the food of our minds, like the creatures that live in our hearts. Every act of our lives, every word, every association, is written with an iron pen upon the very texture of our being.
“There is dew in one flower and not in another,” said Beecher, “because one opens its cup and takes it in, while the other closes itself and the drop runs off.”
What will our future be but what we make it? Our purpose will give it character. One’s resolution is one’s prophecy. There is no bright hope, no great outlook, for the man who is not inspired by a stalwart purpose, which alone is the true interpreter of his manhood.
“There is not in the lowest depths of our hearts,” said Robertson of Brighton, “a mere desire for happiness, but a craving, as natural to us as the desire for food—the craving for nobler, higher life.” To satisfy this craving is good business to be in.
If a youth were to start out in the world with the fixed determination that he will make no statement but the exact truth; that every promise shall be redeemed to the letter; that every appointment shall be kept with the strictest faithfulness, and with sacred regard for other men’s time; if he should hold his reputation as a priceless treasure, and feel that the eyes of the world are upon him, that he must not deviate a hair’s breadth from the truth and right—if he should take such a stand at the outset—he would come to have the almost unlimited confidence of mankind.
What we are to be really, we are now potentially. As the future oak lies folded in the acorn, so in the present lies our future. Our success will be, can be, but a natural tree, developed from the seed of our own sowing; the fragrance of its blossoms and the richness of its fruitage will depend upon nourishment absorbed from our past and present.
The first requisite of all education and discipline should be MAN-TIMBER. Tough timber must come from well-grown, sturdy trees. Such wood can be turned into a mast, can be fashioned into a piano, or an exquisite carving. But it must become timber first. Time and patience develop the sapling into the tree. So, through discipline, education, experience, the sapling child is developed into hardy mental, moral, physical timber. The only real success worthy of the name is that which comes from a consciousness of growing wider, deeper, higher, in mental and moral power, as the years go on. To feel the faculties expanding and unfolding—this is the only life worth living.
And is not all this inspiration in response to a Divine touch and a Divine life? When Mendelssohn once went to see the great Freiburg organ, the custodian, not knowing who he was, would not let him touch it. After much persuasion he allowed the persistent youth to touch a few notes. The old man stood entranced; he had never heard such melody before. At length he asked the great player his name; and, when he had been told, he stood humiliated and self-condemned. A greater musician than Mendelssohn, unknown to us, perhaps, has stood by the human organ which very possibly has given our only “wolf-notes” before to the world, pleading with us to let Him touch the strings and bring out the music divine.
And what a grace it is to come into touch with God! I have read of a girl whose wonderful grace and purity of character charmed everyone who knew her. One day a friend touched the spring of a little gold locket which she always wore on her neck, but which she had let no one see, and in it were these words: “Whom, not having seen, I love.”
Mrs. Livermore has said that Miss Willard was ever conscious of being encompassed round by unseen presences and helpers. She lived in perfect spiritual reciprocity with the unseen world.
How beautiful it all is, after the blunders and the high aspirations of youth, and the struggles of manhood, if life’s discipline has brought us nearer and nearer to God and the ideal life! “What are our yearnings,” asks Beecher, “but homesickness for heaven? Our sighings are sighings for God, just as children cry themselves asleep away from home, and sob in their slumber, not knowing that they sob for their parents. The soul’s inarticulate moanings are the affections yearning for the Infinite, and having no one to tell them what it is that ails them.”
Do you not remember the legend, how the inhabitants of an ancient hamlet proposed to welcome their king, when it was announced that he would honor them with his presence? Early and late they toiled to beautify their village, to make their homes pleasing in his sight. At length, their utmost done, they rested on the eve of their sovereign’s coming. But lo, in the night, while they slept, the angels came down and transformed all their work. The morning sunlight unfolded a scene of radiant splendor. On the sites of lowly cottages stately mansions rose. Snow-white marble gleamed where simply wood had been. Golden pinnacles shone aloft in the bright sunlight. Fountains sent forth their wealth of spray. Palm trees, in graceful loveliness, stood around their village green. Though but a fable, this story is substantially true; since it is thus that God, with the smile of approval, enriches, ennobles, and beautifies the labors of those who love Him, and out of love serve Him.
When, at the evening of our little day, He comes to us, or sends His messenger to bid us come home, not the great things we have done, but faithfulness in doing the little duties that He has placed upon our hands, will win His approval.
“Follow the Star! It may not lead thy feet
Through pleasant vales where bloom and fragrance wait;
Nor may it lead thee to those mountain heights
Where worldly fame and honor hold their state; Yet follow thou! Forget not ‘t is the Star!
And it shall lead to no one less than God, And it shall lead to God, though God be far.”
Cheerfulness as a Life Power
I. What Vanderbilt Paid For Twelve Laughs.
II. THe Cure For Americanitis.
III. Oiling Your Business Machinery.
IV. Taking Your Fun Every Day As You Do Your Work.
V. Finding What You Do Not Seek.
VI. "Looking Pleasant"—Something To Be Worked From The Inside.
A Foreword.
The
