,the ,power of ,truth ,,the ,,power,,of,,truth ,,individual,,problems ,,and,,possibilities ,,by ,,william,,george,,jordan ,,new ,,york ,,brentano',s ,copyright1 #aijb1 by ,brentano's ,published ,august1 #aijb ,second ,edition1 ,april1 #aijd ,third ,edition1 ,february1 #aijh ,fourth ,edition1 ,november1 #aijh ,fifth ,edition1 ,august1 #aiaa ,sixth ,edition1 ,february1 #aiac ,seventh ,edition1 ,february1 #aiaf ,,the ,,university ,,press1 ,,cambridge1 ,,mass41 ,u4 ,s4 ,a4 ,contents ,the ,power of ,truth #a ,the ,courage to ,face ,ingratitude #bc ,people who ,live in ,air ,castles #da ,swords and ,scabbards #ei ,the ,conquest of the ,preventable #ge ,the ,companionship of ,tolerance #ie ,the ,things that ,come too ,late #aae ,the ,way of the ,reformer #acc ,the ,power of ,truth ,,william ,,george ,,jordan ,the ,power of ,truth ,truth is the rock foundation of every great character4 ,it is loyalty to the right as we see it2 it is courageous living of our lives in harmony with our ideals2 it is always--power4 ,truth ever defies full definition4 ,like electricity it can only be explained by noting its manifestation4 ,it is the compass of the soul1 the guardian of conscience1 the final touchstone of right4 ,truth is the revelation of the ideal2 but it is also an inspiration to realize that ideal1 a constant impulse to live it4 ,lying is one of the oldest vices in the world--it made its dbut in the first recorded conversation in history1 in a famous interview in the garden of ,eden4 ,lying is the sacrifice of honor to create a wrong impression4 ,it is masquerading in misfit virtues4 ,truth can stand alone1 for it needs no chaperone or escort4 ,lies are cowardly1 fearsome things that must travel in battalions4 ,they are like a lot of drunken men1 one vainly seeking to support another4 ,lying is the partner and accomplice of all the other vices4 ,it is the cancer of moral degeneracy in an individual life4 ,truth is the oldest of all the virtues2 it antedated man1 it lived before there was man to perceive it or to accept it4 ,it is the unchangeable1 the constant4 ,law is the eternal truth of ,nature--the unity that always produces identical results under identical conditions4 ,when a man discovers a great truth in ,nature he has the key to the understanding of a million phenomena2 when he grasps a great truth in morals he has in it the key to his spiritual re-creation4 ,for the individual1 there is no such thing as theoretic truth2 a great truth that is not absorbed by our whole mind and life1 and has not become an inseparable part of our living1 is not a real truth to us4 ,if we know the truth and do not live it1 our life is--a lie4 ,in speech1 the man who makes ,truth his watchword is careful in his words1 he seeks to be accurate1 neither understating nor over-coloring4 ,he never states as a fact that of which he is not sure4 ,what he says has the ring of sincerity1 the hallmark of pure gold4 ,if he praises you1 you accept his statement as net1 you do not have to work out a problem in mental arithmetic on the side to see what discount you ought to make before you accept his judgment4 ,his promise counts for something1 you accept it as being as good as his bond1 you know that no matter how much it may cost him to verify and fulfil his word by his deed1 he will do it4 ,his honesty is not policy4 ,the man who is honest merely because it is the best policy1 is not really honest1 he is only politic4 ,usually such a man would forsake his seeming loyalty to truth and would work overtime for the devil--if he could get better terms4 ,truth means that which one troweth or believes4 ,it is living simply and squarely by our belief2 it is the externalizing of a faith in a series of actions4 ,truth is ever strong1 courageous1 virile1 though kindly1 gentle1 calm1 and restful4 ,there is a vital difference between error and untruthfulness4 ,a man may be in error and yet live bravely by it2 he who is untruthful in his life knows the truth but denies it4 ,the one is loyal to what he believes1 the other is traitor to what he knows4 ,what is ,truth8 ,pilate's great question1 asked of ,christ nearly two thousand years ago1 has echoed unanswered through the ages4 ,we get constant revelations of parts of it1 glimpses of constantly new phases1 but never complete1 final definition4 ,if we but live up to the truth that we know1 and seek ever to know more1 we have put ourselves into the spiritual attitude of receptiveness to know ,truth in the fullness of its power4 ,truth is the sun of morality1 and like that lesser sun in the heavens1 we can walk by its light1 live in its warmth and life1 even if we see but a small part of it and receive but a microscopic fraction of its rays4 ,which of the great religions of the world is the real1 the final1 the absolute truth8 ,we must make our individual choice and live by it as best we can4 ,every new sect1 every new cult1 has in it a grain of truth1 at least2 it is this that attracts attention and wins adherents4 ,this mustard seed of truth is often overestimated1 darkening the eyes of man to the untrue parts or phases of the varying religious faiths4 ,but1 in exact proportion to the basic truth they contain do religions last1 become permanent and growing1 and satisfy and inspire the hearts of men4 ,mushrooms of error have a quick growth1 but they exhaust their vitality and die1 while ,truth still lives4 ,the man who makes the acquisition of wealth the goal and ultimatum of his life1 seeing it as an end rather than a means to an end1 is not true4 ,why does the world usually make wealth the criterion of success1 and riches the synonym of attainment8 ,real success in life means the individual's conquest of himself2 it means how he has bettered himself not how he has bettered his fortune4 ,the great question of life is not ,what have ,i8 but ,what am ,i8 ,man is usually loyal to what he most desires4 ,the man who lies to save a nickel1 merely proclaims that he esteems a nickel more than he does his honor4 ,he who sacrifices his ideals1 truth and character1 for mere money or position1 is weighing his conscience in one pan of a scale against a bag of gold in the other4 ,he is loyal to what he finds the heavier1 that which he desires the more--the money4 ,but this is not truth4 ,truth is the heart's loyalty to abstract right1 made manifest in concrete instances4 ,the tradesman who lies1 cheats1 misleads and overcharges and then seeks to square himself with his anmic conscience by saying1 lying is absolutely necessary to business1 is as untrue in his statement as he is in his acts4 ,he justifies himself with the petty defence as the thief who says it is necessary to steal in order to live4 ,the permanent business prosperity of an individual1 a city or a nation rests finally on commercial integrity alone1 despite all that the cynics may say1 or all the exceptions whose temporary success may mislead them4 ,it is truth alone that lasts4 ,the politician who is vacillating1 temporizing1 shifting1 constantly trimming his sails to catch every puff of wind of popularity1 is a trickster who succeeds only until he is found out4 ,a lie may live for a time1 truth for all time4 ,a lie never lives by its own vitality1 it merely continues to exist because it simulates truth4 ,when it is unmasked1 it dies4 ,when each of four newspapers in one city puts forth the claim that its circulation is larger than all the others combined1 there must be an error somewhere4 ,where there is untruth there is always conflict1 discrepancy1 impossibility4 ,if all the truths of life and experience from the first second of time1 or for any section of eternity1 were brought together1 there would be perfect harmony1 perfect accord1 union and unity1 but if two lies come together1 they quarrel and seek to destroy each other4 ,it is in the trifles of daily life that truth should be our constant guide and inspiration4 ,truth is not a dress-suit1 consecrated to special occasions1 it is the strong1 well-woven1 durable homespun for daily living4 ,the man who forgets his promises is untrue4 ,we rarely lose sight of those promises made to us for our individual benefit2 these we regard as checks we always seek to cash at the earliest moment4 ,the miser never forgets where he hides his treasure1 says one of the old philosophers4 ,let us cultivate that sterling honor that holds our word so supreme1 so sacred1 that to forget it would seem a crime1 to deny it would be impossible4 ,the man who says pleasant things and makes promises which to him are light as air1 but to someone else seem the rock upon which a life's hope is built is cruelly untrue4 ,he who does not regard his appointments1 carelessly breaking them or ignoring them1 is the thoughtless thief of another's time4 ,it reveals selfishness1 carelessness1 and lax business morals4 ,it is untrue to the simplest justice of life4 ,men who split hairs with their conscience1 who mislead others by deft1 shrewd phrasing which may be true in letter yet lying in spirit and designedly uttered to produce a false impression1 are untruthful in the most cowardly way4 ,such men would cheat even in solitaire4 ,like murderers they forgive themselves their crime in congratulating themselves on the cleverness of their alibi4 ,the parent who preaches honor to his child and gives false statistics about the child's age to the conductor1 to save a nickel1 is not true4 ,the man who keeps his religion in camphor all week and who takes it out only on ,sunday1 is not true4 ,he who seeks to get the highest wages for the least possible amount of service1 is not true4 ,the man who has to sing lullabies to his conscience before he himself can sleep1 is not true4 ,truth is the straight line in morals4 ,it is the shortest distance between a fact and the expression of it4 ,the foundations of truth should ever be laid in childhood4 ,it is then that parents should instil into the young mind the instant1 automatic turning to truth1 making it the constant atmosphere of the mind and life4 ,let the child know that ,truth above all things should be the motto of its life4 ,parents make a great mistake when they look upon a lie as a disease in morals2 it is not always a disease in itself1 it is but a symptom4 ,behind every untruth is some reason1 some cause1 and it is this cause that should be removed4 ,the lie may be the result of fear1 the attempt to cover a fault and to escape punishment2 it may be merely the evidence of an over-active imagination2 it may reveal maliciousness or obstinacy2 it may be the hunger for praise that leads the child to win attention and to startle others by wonderful stories2 it may be merely carelessness in speech1 the reckless use of words2 it may be acquisitiveness that makes lying the handmaid of theft4 ,but if1 in the life of the child or the adult1 the symptom be made to reveal the disease1 and that be then treated1 truth reasserts itself and the moral health is restored4 ,constantly telling a child not to lie is giving life and intensity to the lie4 ,the true method is to quicken the moral muscles from the positive side1 urge the child to be honest1 to be faithful1 to be loyal1 to be fearless to the truth4 ,tell him ever of the nobility of courage to speak the true1 to live the right1 to hold fast to principles of honor in every trifle--then he need never fear to face any of life's crises4 ,the parent must live truth or the child will not live it4 ,the child will startle you with its quickness in puncturing the bubble of your pretended knowledge2 in instinctively piercing the heart of a sophistry without being conscious of process2 in relentlessly enumerating your unfulfilled promises2 in detecting with the justice of a court of equity a technicality of speech that is virtually a lie4 ,he will justify his own lapses from truth by appeal to some white lie told to a visitor1 and unknown to be overheard by the little one1 whose mental powers we ever underestimate in theory though we may overpraise in words4 ,teach the child in a thousand ways1 directly and indirectly1 the power of truth1 the beauty of truth1 and the sweetness and rest of companionship with truth4 ,and if it be the rock-foundation of the child character1 as a fact1 not as a theory1 the future of that child is as fully assured as it is possible for human prevision to guarantee4 ,the power of ,truth1 in its highest1 purest1 and most exalted phases1 stands squarely on four basic lines of relation1--the love of truth1 the search for truth1 faith in truth1 and work for truth4 ,the love of ,truth is the cultivated hunger for it in itself and for itself1 without any thought of what it may cost1 what sacrifices it may entail1 what theories or beliefs of a lifetime may be laid desolate4 ,in its supreme phase1 this attitude of life is rare1 but unless one can begin to put himself into harmony with this view1 the individual will only creep in truth1 when he might walk bravely4 ,with the love of truth1 the individual scorns to do a mean thing1 no matter what be the gain1 even if the whole world would approve4 ,he would not sacrifice the sanction of his own high standard for any gain1 he would not willingly deflect the needle of his thought and act from the true ,north1 as he knows it1 by the slightest possible variation4 ,he himself would know of the deflection--that would be enough4 ,what matters it what the world thinks if he have his own disapproval8 ,the man who has a certain religious belief and fears to discuss it1 lest it may be proved wrong1 is not loyal to his belief1 he has but a coward's faithfulness to his prejudices4 ,if he were a lover of truth1 he would be willing at any moment to surrender his belief for a higher1 better1 and truer faith4 ,the man who votes the same ticket in politics1 year after year1 without caring for issues1 men1 or problems1 merely voting in a certain way because he always has voted so1 is sacrificing loyalty to truth to a weak1 mistaken1 stubborn attachment to a worn-out precedent4 ,such a man should stay in his cradle all his life--because he spent his early years there4 ,the search for ,truth means that the individual must not merely follow truth as he sees it1 but he must1 so far as he can1 search to see that he is right4 ,when the ,kearsarge was wrecked on the ,roncador ,reef1 the captain was sailing correctly by his chart4 ,but his map was an old one2 the sunken reef was not marked down4 ,loyalty to back-number standards means stagnation4 ,in ,china they plow to-day1 but they plow with the instrument of four thousand years ago4 ,the search for truth is the angel of progress--in civilization and in morals4 ,while it makes us bold and aggressive in our own life1 it teaches us to be tender and sympathetic with others4 ,their life may represent a station we have passed in our progress1 or one we must seek to reach4 ,we can then congratulate ourselves without condemning them4 ,all the truths of the world are not concentrated in our creed4 ,all the sunshine of the world is not focused on our doorstep4 ,we should ever speak the truth1--but only in love and kindness4 ,truth should ever extend the hand of love2 never the hand clenching a bludgeon4 ,faith in ,truth is an essential to perfect companionship with truth4 ,the individual must have perfect confidence and assurance of the final triumph of right1 and order1 and justice1 and believe that all things are evolving toward that divine consummation1 no matter how dark and dreary life may seem from day to day4 ,no real success1 no lasting happiness can exist except it be founded on the rock of truth4 ,the prosperity that is based on lying1 deception1 and intrigue1 is only temporary--it cannot last any more than a mushroom can outlive an oak4 ,like the blind ,samson1 struggling in the temple1 the individual whose life is based on trickery always pulls down the supporting columns of his own edifice1 and perishes in the ruins4 ,no matter what price a man may pay for truth1 he is getting it at a bargain4 ,the lying of others can never hurt us long1 it always carries with it our exoneration in the end4 ,during the siege of ,sebastopol1 the ,russian shells that threatened to destroy a fort opened a hidden spring of water in the hillside1 and saved the thirsting people they sought to kill4 ,work for the interests and advancement of ,truth is a necessary part of real companionship4 ,if a man has a love of truth1 if he searches to find it1 and has faith in it1 even when he cannot find it1 will he not work to spread it8 ,the strongest way for man to strengthen the power of truth in the world is to live it himself in every detail of thought1 word1 and deed--to make himself a sun of personal radiation of truth1 and to let his silent influence speak for it and his direct acts glorify it so far as he can in his sphere of life and action4 ,let him first seek to be1 before he seeks to teach or to do1 in any line of moral growth4 ,let man realize that ,truth is essentially an intrinsic virtue1 in his relation to himself even if there were no other human being living2 it becomes extrinsic as he radiates it in his daily life4 ,truth is first1 intellectual honesty--the craving to know the right2 second1 it is moral honesty1 the hunger to live the right4 ,truth is not a mere absence of the vices4 ,this is only a moral vacuum4 ,truth is the living1 pulsing breathing of the virtues of life4 ,mere refraining from wrong-doing is but keeping the weeds out of the garden of one's life4 ,but this must be followed by positive planting of the seeds of right to secure the flowers of true living4 ,to the negatives of the ,ten ,commandments must be added the positives of the ,beatitudes4 ,the one condemns1 the other commends2 the one forbids1 the other inspires2 the one emphasizes the act1 the other the spirit behind the act4 ,the whole truth rests not in either1 but in both4 ,a man cannot truly believe in ,god without believing in the final inevitable triumph of ,truth4 ,if you have ,truth on your side you can pass through the dark valley of slander1 misrepresentation and abuse1 undaunted1 as though you wore a magic suit of mail that no bullet could enter1 no arrow could pierce4 ,you can hold your head high1 toss it fearlessly and defiantly1 look every man calmly and unflinchingly in the eye1 as though you rode1 a victorious king1 returning at the head of your legions with banners waving and lances glistening1 and bugles filling the air with music4 ,you can feel the great expansive wave of moral health surging through you as the quickened blood courses through the body of him who is gladly1 gloriously proud of physical health4 ,you will know that all will come right in the end1 that it must come1 that error must flee before the great white light of truth1 as darkness slinks away into nothingness in the presence of the sunburst4 ,then1 with ,truth as your guide1 your companion1 your ally1 and inspiration1 you tingle with the consciousness of your kinship with the ,infinite and all the petty trials1 sorrows and sufferings of life fade away like temporary1 harmless visions seen in a dream4 ,the ,courage to ,face ,ingratitude ,the ,courage to ,face ,ingratitude ,ingratitude1 the most popular sin of humanity1 is forgetfulness of the heart4 ,it is the revelation of the emptiness of pretended loyalty4 ,the individual who possesses it finds it the shortest cut to all the other vices4 ,ingratitude is a crime more despicable than revenge1 which is only returning evil for evil1 while ingratitude returns evil for good4 ,people who are ungrateful rarely forgive you if you do them a good turn4 ,their microscopic hearts resent the humiliation of having been helped by a superior1 and this rankling feeling filtering through their petty natures often ends in hate and treachery4 ,gratitude is thankfulness expressed in action4 ,it is the instinctive radiation of justice1 giving new life and energy to the individual from whom it emanates4 ,it is the heart's recognition of kindness that the lips cannot repay4 ,gratitude never counts its payments4 ,it realizes that no debt of kindness can ever be outlawed1 ever be cancelled1 ever paid in full4 ,gratitude ever feels the insignificance of its instalments2 ingratitude the nothingness of the debt4 ,gratitude is the flowering of a seed of kindness2 ingratitude is the dead inactivity of a seed dropped on a stone4 ,the expectation of gratitude is human2 the rising superior to ingratitude is almost divine4 ,to desire recognition of our acts of kindness and to hunger for appreciation and the simple justice of a return of good for good1 is natural4 ,but man never rises to the dignity of true living until he has the courage that dares to face ingratitude calmly1 and to pursue his course unchanged when his good works meet with thanklessness or disdain4 ,man should have only one court of appeals as to his actions1 not what will be the result8 how will it be received8 but is it right8 ,then he should live his life in harmony with this standard alone1 serenely1 bravely1 loyally and unfalteringly1 making right for right's sake both his ideal and his inspiration4 ,man should not be an automatic gas-machine1 cleverly contrived to release a given quantity of illumination under the stimulus of a nickel4 ,he should be like the great sun itself which ever radiates light1 warmth1 life and power1 because it cannot help doing so1 because these qualities fill the heart of the sun1 and for it to have them means that it must give them constantly4 ,let the sunlight of our sympathy1 tenderness1 love1 appreciation1 influence and kindness ever go out from us as a glow to brighten and hearten others4 ,but do not let us ever spoil it all by going through life constantly collecting receipts1 as vouchers1 to stick on the file of our self-approval4 ,it is hard to see those who have sat at our board in the days of our prosperity1 flee as from a pestilence when misfortune darkens our doorway2 to see the loyalty upon which we would have staked our life1 that seemed firm as a rock1 crack and splinter like thin glass at the first real test2 to know that the fire of friendship at which we could ever warm our hands in our hour of need1 has turned to cold1 dead1 gray ashes1 where warmth is but a haunting memory4 ,to realize that he who once lived in the sanctuary of our affection1 in the frank confidence where conversation seemed but our soliloquy1 and to whom our aims and aspirations have been thrown open with no ,bluebeard chamber of reserve1 has been secretly poisoning the waters of our reputation and undermining us by his lies and treachery1 is hard indeed4 ,but no matter how the ingratitude stings us1 we should just swallow the sob1 stifle the tear1 smile serenely and bravely1 and--seek to forget4 ,in justice to ourselves we should not permit the ingratitude of a few to make us condemn the whole world4 ,we pay too much tribute to a few human insects when we let their wrong-doing paralyze our faith in humanity4 ,it is a lie of the cynics that says all men are ungrateful1 a companion lie to all men have their price4 ,we must trust humanity if we would get good from humanity4 ,he who thinks all mankind is vile is a pessimist who mistakes his introspection for observation2 he looks into his own heart and thinks he sees the world4 ,he is like a cross-eyed man1 who never sees what he seems to be looking at4 ,confidence and credit are the cornerstones of business1 as they are of society4 ,withdraw them from business and the activities and enterprises of the world would stop in an instant1 topple and fall into chaos4 ,withdraw confidence in humanity from the individual1 and he becomes but a breathing1 selfish egotist1 the one good man left1 working overtime in nursing his petty grudge against the world because a few whom he has favored have been ungrateful4 ,if a man receives a counterfeit dollar he does not straightway lose his faith in all money1--at least there are no such instances on record in this country4 ,if he has a run of three or four days of dull weather he does not say the sun ceases to exist1 there are surely no bright days to come in the whole calendar of time4 ,if a man's breakfast is rendered an unpleasant memory by some item of food that has outlived its usefulness1 he does not forswear eating4 ,if a man finds under a tree an apple with a suspicious looking hole on one side1 he does not condemn the whole orchard2 he simply confines his criticism to that apple4 ,but he who has helped some one who1 later1 did not pass a good examination on gratitude1 says in a voice plaintive with the consciousness of injury1 and with a nod of his head that implies the wisdom of ,solomon3 ,i have had my experience1 ,i have learned my lesson4 ,this is the last time ,i will have faith in any man4 ,i did this for him1 and that for him1 and now1 look at the result6 ,then he unrolls a long schedule of favors1 carefully itemized and added up1 till it seems the pay-roll of a great city4 ,he complains of the injustice of one man1 yet he is willing to be unjust to the whole world1 making it bear the punishment of the wrong of an individual4 ,there is too much vicarious suffering already in this earth of ours without this lilliputian attempt to extend it by syndicating one man's ingratitude4 ,if one man drinks to excess1 it is not absolute justice to send the whole world to jail4 ,the farmer does not expect every seed that he sows in hope and faith to fall on good ground and bring forth its harvest2 he is perfectly certain that this will not be so1 cannot be4 ,he is counting on the final outcome of many seeds1 on the harvest of all1 rather than on the harvest of one4 ,if you really want gratitude1 and must have it1 be willing to make many men your debtors4 ,the more unselfish1 charitable and exalted the life and mission of the individual1 the larger will be the number of instances of ingratitude that must be met and vanquished4 ,the thirty years of ,christ's life was a tragedy of ingratitudes4 ,ingratitude is manifest in three degrees of intensity in the world--,he knew them all in numberless bitter instances4 ,the first phase1 the simplest and most common1 is that of thoughtless thanklessness1 as was shown in the case of the ten lepers healed in one day--nine departed without a word1 only one gave thanks4 ,the second phase of ingratitude is denial1 a positive sin1 not the mere negation of thanklessness4 ,this was exemplified in ,peter1 whose selfish desire to stand well with two maids and some bystanders1 in the hour when he had the opportunity to be loyal to ,christ1 forgot his friendship1 lost all thought of his indebtedness to his ,master1 and denied ,him1 not once or twice1 but three times4 ,the third phase of ingratitude is treachery1 where selfishness grows vindictive1 as shown by ,judas1 the honored treasurer of the little band of thirteen1 whose jealousy1 ingratitude1 and thirty pieces of silver1 made possible the tragedy of ,calvary4 ,these three--thanklessness1 denial and treachery--run the gamut of ingratitude1 and the first leads to the second1 and the second prepares the way for the third4 ,we must ever tower high above dependence on human gratitude or we can do nothing really great1 nothing truly noble4 ,the expectation of gratitude is the alloy of an otherwise virtuous act4 ,it ever dulls the edge of even our best actions4 ,most persons look at gratitude as a protective tariff on virtues4 ,the man who is weakened in well-doing by the ingratitude of others1 is serving ,god on a salary basis4 ,he is a hired soldier1 not a volunteer4 ,he should be honest enough to see that he is working for a reward2 like a child1 he is being good for a bonus4 ,he is really regarding his kindness and his other expressions of goodness as moral stock he is willing to hold only so long as they pay dividends4 ,there is in such living always a touch of the pose2 it is waiting for the applause of the gallery4 ,we must let the consciousness of doing right1 of living up to our ideals1 be our reward and stimulus1 or life will become to us but a series of failures1 sorrows and disappointments4 ,much of the seeming ingratitude in life comes from our magnifying of our own acts1 our minifying of the acts of others4 ,we may have overestimated the importance of something that we have done2 it may have been most trivial1 purely incidental1 yet the marvellous working of the loom of time brought out great and unexpected results to the recipient of our favor4 ,we often feel that wondrous gratitude is due us1 though we were in no wise the inspiration of the success we survey with such a feeling of pride4 ,a chance introduction given by us on the street may1 through an infinity of circumstances1 make our friend a millionaire4 ,thanks may be due us for the introduction1 and perhaps not even that1 for it might have been unavoidable1 but surely we err when we expect him to be meekly grateful to us for his subsequent millions4 ,the essence of truest kindness lies in the grace with which it is performed4 ,some men seem to discount all gratitude1 almost make it impossible1 by the way in which they grant favors4 ,they make you feel so small1 so mean1 so inferior2 your cheeks burn with indignation in the acceptance of the boon you seek at their hands4 ,you feel it is like a bone thrown at a dog1 instead of the quick1 sympathetic graciousness that forestalls your explanations and waives your thanks with a smile1 the pleasure of one friend who has been favored with the opportunity to be of service to another4 ,the man who makes another feel like an insect reclining on a red-hot stove while he is receiving a favor1 has no right to expect future gratitude1--he should feel satisfied if he receives forgiveness4 ,let us forget the good deeds we have done by making them seem small in comparison with the greater things we are doing1 and the still greater acts we hope to do4 ,this is true generosity1 and will develop gratitude in the soul of him who has been helped1 unless he is so petrified in selfishness as to make it impossible4 ,but constantly reminding a man of the favors he has received from you almost cancels the debt4 ,the care of the statistics should be his privilege2 you are usurping his prerogative when you recall them4 ,merely because it has been our good fortune to be able to serve some one1 we should not act as if we held a mortgage on his immortality1 and expect him to swing the censor of adulation forever in our presence4 ,that which often seems to us to be ingratitude1 may be merely our own ignorance of the subtle phases of human nature4 ,sometimes a man's heart is so full of thankfulness that he cannot speak1 and in the very intensity of his appreciation1 mere words seem to him paltry1 petty1 and inadequate1 and the depth of the eloquence of his silence is misunderstood4 ,sometimes the consciousness of his inability to repay1 develops a strange pride--genuine gratitude it may be1 though unwise in its lack of expression--a determination to say nothing1 until the opportunity for which he is waiting to enable him to make his gratitude an actuality4 ,there are countless instances in which true gratitude has all the semblance of the basest ingratitude1 as certain harmless plants are made by ,nature to resemble poison-ivy4 ,ingratitude is some one's protest that you are no longer necessary to him2 it is often the expression of rebellion at the discontinuance of favors4 ,people are rarely ungrateful until they have exhausted their assessments4 ,profuse expressions of gratitude do not cancel an indebtedness any more than a promissory note settles an account4 ,it is a beginning1 not a finality4 ,gratitude that is extravagant in words is usually economical in all other expression4 ,no good act performed in the world ever dies4 ,science tells us that no atom of matter can ever be destroyed1 that no force once started ever ends2 it merely passes through a multiplicity of ever-changing phases4 ,every good deed done to others is a great force that starts an unending pulsation through time and eternity4 ,we may not know it1 we may never hear a word of gratitude or of recognition1 but it will all come back to us in some form as naturally1 as perfectly1 as inevitably1 as echo answers to sound4 ,perhaps not as we expect it1 how we expect it1 nor where1 but sometime1 somehow1 somewhere1 it comes back1 as the dove that ,noah sent from the ,ark returned with its green leaf of revelation4 ,let us conceive of gratitude in its largest1 most beautiful sense1 that if we receive any kindness we are debtor1 not merely to one man1 but to the whole world4 ,as we are each day indebted to thousands for the comforts1 joys1 consolations1 and blessings of life1 let us realize that it is only by kindness to all that we can begin to repay the debt to one1 begin to make gratitude the atmosphere of all our living and a constant expression in outward acts1 rather than in mere thoughts4 ,let us see the awful cowardice and the injustice of ingratitude1 not to take it too seriously in others1 not to condemn it too severely1 but merely to banish it forever from our own lives1 and to make every hour of our living the radiation of the sweetness of gratitude4 ,people who ,live in ,air ,castles ,people who ,live in ,air ,castles ,living in an air-castle is about as profitable as owning a half-interest in a rainbow4 ,it is no more nourishing than a dinner of twelve courses--eaten in a dream4 ,air-castles are built of golden moments of time1 and their only value is in the raw material thus rendered valueless4 ,the atmosphere of air-castles is heavy and stupefying with the incense of vague hopes and phantom ideals4 ,in them man lulls himself into dreaming inactivity with the songs of the mighty deeds he is going to do1 the great influence he some day will have1 the vast wealth that will be his1 sometime1 somehow1 somewhere1 in the rosy1 sunlit days of the future4 ,the architectural error about air-castles is that the owner builds them downward from their gilded turrets in the clouds1 instead of upward from a solid1 firm foundation of purpose and energy4 ,this diet of mental lotus-leaves is a mental narcotic1 not a stimulant4 ,ambition1 when wedded to tireless energy is a great thing and a good thing1 but in itself it amounts to little4 ,man cannot raise himself to higher things by what he would like to accomplish1 but only by what he endeavors to accomplish4 ,to be of value1 ambition must ever be made manifest in zeal1 in determination1 in energy consecrated to an ideal4 ,if it be thus reinforced1 thus combined1 the thin airy castle melts into nothingness1 and the individual stands on a new strong foundation of solid rock1 whereon1 day by day and stone by stone1 he can rear a mighty material structure of life-work to last through time and eternity4 ,the air-castle ever represents the work of an architect without a builder2 it means plans never put into execution4 ,they tell us that man is the architect of his own fortunes4 ,but if he be merely architect he will make only an air-castle of his life2 he should be architect and builder too4 ,living in the future is living in an air-castle4 ,to-morrow is the grave where the dreams of the dreamer1 the toiler who toils not1 are buried4 ,the man who says he will lead a newer and better life to-morrow1 who promises great things for the future1 and yet does nothing in the present to make that future possible1 is living in an air-castle4 ,in his arrogance he is attempting to perform a miracle2 he is seeking to turn water into wine1 to have harvest without seed-time1 to have an end without a beginning4 ,if we would make our lives worthy of us1 grand and noble1 solid and impregnable1 we must forsake air-castles of dreaming for strongholds of doing4 ,every man with an ideal has a right to live in the glow and inspiration of it1 and to picture the joy of attainment1 as the tired traveller fills his mind with the thought of the brightness of home1 to quicken his steps and to make the weary miles seem shorter1 but the worker should never really worry about the future1 think little of it except for inspiration1 to determine his course1 as mariners study the stars1 to make his plans wisely and to prepare for that future by making each separate day the best and truest that he can4 ,let us live up to the fulness of our possibilities each day4 ,man has only one day of life--to-day4 ,he did live yesterday1 he may live to-morrow1 but he has only to-day4 ,the secret of true living--mental1 physical and moral1 material and spiritual1--may be expressed in five words3 ,live up to your portion4 ,this is the magic formula that transforms air-castles into fortresses4 ,men sometimes grow mellow and generous in the thought of what they would do if great wealth came to them4 ,if ,i were a millionaire1 they say1--and they let the phrase melt sweetly in their mouths as though it were a caramel1--,i would subsidize genius2 ,i would found a college2 ,i would build a great hospital2 ,i would erect model tenements2 ,i would show the world what real charity is4 ,oh1 it is all so easy1 so easy1 this vicarious benevolence1 this spending of other people's fortunes6 ,few of us1 according to the latest statistics1 have a million1 but we all have something1 some part of it4 ,are we living up to our portion8 ,are we generous with what we have8 ,the man who is selfish with one thousand dollars will not develop angelic wings of generosity when his million comes4 ,if the generous spirit be a reality with the individual1 instead of an empty boast1 he will1 every hour1 find opportunity to make it manifest4 ,the radiation of kindness need not be expressed in money at all4 ,it may be shown in a smile of human interest1 a glow of sympathy1 a word of fellowship with the sorrowing and the struggling1 an instinctive outstretching of a helping hand to one in need4 ,no man living is so poor that he cannot evidence his spirit of benevolence toward his fellowman4 ,it may assume that rare and wondrously beautiful phase of divine charity1 in realizing how often a motive is misrepresented in the act1 how sin1 sorrow and suffering have warped and disguised latent good1 in substituting a word of gentle tolerance for some cheap tinsel of shabby cynicism that pretends to be wit4 ,if we are not rich enough to give cold1 hard cash1 let us at least be too rich to give cold1 hard words4 ,let us leave our air-castles of vague self-adulation for so wisely spending millions we have never seen1 and rise to the dignity of living up to the full proportion of our possessions1 no matter how slight they may be4 ,let us fill the world around us with love1 brightness1 sweetness1 gentleness1 helpfulness1 courage and sympathy1 as if they were the only legal tender and we were ,monte ,cristos with untold treasures of such gold ever at our call4 ,let us cease saying3 ,if ,i were1 and say ever3 ,i am4 ,let us stop living in the subjunctive mood1 and begin to live in the indicative4 ,the one great defence of humanity against the charge of unfulfilled duties is lack of time4 ,the constant clamoring for time would be pathetic1 were it not for the fact that most individuals throw away more of it than they use4 ,time is the only really valuable possession of man1 for without it every power within him would cease to exist4 ,yet he recklessly squanders his great treasure as if it were valueless4 ,the wealth of the whole world could not buy one second of time4 ,yet ,society assassins dare to say in public that they have been killing time4 ,the time fallacy has put more people into air-castles than all other causes combined4 ,life is only time2 eternity is only more time2 immortality is merely man's right to live through unending time4 ,if ,i had a library ,i would read1 is the weak plaint of some other tenant of an air-castle4 ,if a man does not read the two or three good books in his possession or accessible to him he would not read if he had the ,british ,museum brought to his bedside1 and the ,british ,army delegated to continual service in handing him books from the shelves4 ,the time sacrificed to reading sensational newspapers might be consecrated to good reading1 if the individual were willing merely to live up to his portion of opportunity4 ,the man who longs for some crisis in life1 wherein he may show mighty courage1 while he is expending no portion of that courage in bearing bravely the petty trials1 sorrows and disappointments of daily life1 is living in an air-castle4 ,he is just a sparrow looking enviously at the mountain crags where the hardy eagle builds her nest1 and dreaming of being a great bird like that1 perhaps even daring in a patronizing way1 to criticise her method of flight and to plume himself with the medals he could win for flying if he only would4 ,it is the day-by-day heroism that vitalizes all of a man's power in an emergency1 that gives him confidence that when need comes he will and must be ready4 ,the air-castle typifies any delusion or folly that makes man forsake real living for an idle1 vague existence4 ,living in air-castles means that a man sees life in a wrong perspective4 ,he permits his lower self to dominate his higher self2 he who should tower as a mighty conqueror over the human weakness1 sin and folly that threaten to destroy his better nature1 binds upon his own wrists the manacles of habit that hold him a slave4 ,he loses the crown of his kingship because he sells his royal birthright for temporary ease and comfort and the showy things of the world1 sacrificing so much that is best in him for mere wealth1 success1 position1 or the plaudits of the world4 ,he forsakes the throne of individuality for the air-castle of delusion4 ,the man who wraps himself in the ,napoleonic cloak of his egotism1 hypnotizing himself into believing that he is superior to all other men1 that the opera-glasses of the universe are focused upon him and that he treads the stage alone1 had better wake up4 ,he is living in an air-castle4 ,he who1 like ,narcissus1 falls in love with his own reflection and thinks he has a monopoly of the great work of the world1 whose conceit rises from him like the smoke from the magic bottle of the genii and spreads till it shuts out and conceals the universe is living in an air-castle4 ,the man who believes that all humanity is united in conspiracy against him1 who feels that his life is the hardest in all the world1 and lets the cares1 sorrows and trials that come to us all1 eclipse the glorious sun of his happiness1 darkening his eyes to his privileges and his blessings1 is living in an air-castle4 ,the woman who thinks the most beautiful creature in the world is seen in her mirror1 and who exchanges her queenly heritage of noble living for the shams1 jealousies1 follies1 frivolities and pretences of society1 is living in an air-castle4 ,the man who makes wealth his god instead of his servant1 who is determined to get rich1 rich at any cost1 and who is willing to sacrifice honesty1 honor1 loyalty1 character1 family--everything he should hold dear--for the sake of a mere stack of money-bags1 is1 despite his robes of ermine1 only a rich pauper living in an air-castle4 ,the man of ultra-conservatism1 the victim of false content1 who has no plans1 no ideals1 no aspirations beyond the dull round of daily duties in which he moves like a gold-fish in a globe1 is often vain enough to boast of his lack of progressiveness1 in cheap shop-worn phrases from those whom he permits to do his thinking for him4 ,he does not realize that faithfulness to duties1 in its highest sense1 means the constant aiming at the performance of higher duties1 living up1 so far as can be1 to the maximum of one's possibilities1 not resignedly plodding along at the minimum4 ,a piece of machinery will do this1 but real men ever seek to rise to higher uses4 ,such a man is living in an air-castle4 ,with patronizing contempt he scorns the man of earnest1 thoughtful purpose1 who sees his goal far before him but is willing to pay any honest price to attain it2 content to work day by day unceasingly1 through storm and stress1 and sunshine and shadow1 with sublime confidence that nature is storing up every stroke of his effort1 that1 though times often seem dark and progress but slight1 results must come if he have but courage to fight bravely to the end4 ,this man does not live in an air-castle2 he is but battling with destiny for the possession of his heritage1 and is strengthened in character by his struggle1 even though all that he desires may not be fully awarded him4 ,the man who permits regret for past misdeeds1 or sorrow for lost opportunities to keep him from recreating a proud future from the new days committed to his care1 is losing much of the glory of living4 ,he is repudiating the manna of new life given each new day1 merely because he misused the manna of years ago4 ,he is doubly unwise1 because he has the wisdom of his past experience and does not profit by it1 merely because of a technicality of useless1 morbid regret4 ,he is living in an air-castle4 ,the man who spends his time lamenting the fortune he once had1 or the fame that has taken its winged flight into oblivion1 frittering away his golden hours erecting new monuments in the cemetery of his past achievements and his former greatness1 making what he was ever plead apology for what he is1 lives in an air-castle4 ,to the world and to the individual a single egg of new hope and determination1 with its wondrous potency of new life1 is greater than a thousand nests full of the eggs of dead dreams1 or unrealized ambitions4 ,whatever keeps a man from living his best1 truest and highest life now1 in the indicative present1 if it be something that he himself places as an obstacle in his own path of progress and development1 is to him an air-castle4 ,some men live in the air-castle of indolence2 others in the air-castle of dissipation1 of pride1 of avarice1 of deception1 of bigotry1 of worry1 of intemperance1 of injustice1 of intolerance1 of procrastination1 of lying1 of selfishness1 or of some other mental or moral characteristic that withdraws them from the real duties and privileges of living4 ,let us find out what is the air-castle in which we1 individually1 spend most of our time and we can then begin a re-creation of ourselves4 ,the bondage of the air-castle must be fought nobly and untiringly4 ,as man spends his hours and his days and his weeks in an air-castle1 he finds that the delicate gossamer-like strands and lines of the phantom structure gradually become less and less airy2 they begin to grow firm and firmer1 strengthening with the years1 until at last1 solid walls hem him in4 ,then he is startled by the awful realization that habit and habitancy have transformed his air-castle into a prison from which escape is difficult4 ,and then he learns that the most deceptive and dangerous of all things is1--the air-castle4 ,swords and ,scabbards ,swords and ,scabbards ,it is the custom of grateful states and nations to present swords as tokens of highest honor to the victorious leaders of their armies and navies4 ,the sword presented to ,admiral ,schley by the people of ,philadelphia1 at the close of ,america's war with ,spain1 cost over #c1ejj1 the greater part of which was spent on the jewels and decorations on the scabbard4 ,a little more than half a century ago1 when ,general ,winfield ,scott1 for whom ,admiral ,schley was named1 received a beautiful sword from the ,state of ,louisiana1 he was asked how it pleased him4 ,it is a very fine sword1 indeed1 he said1 but there is one thing about it ,i would have preferred different4 ,the inscription should be on the blade1 not on the scabbard4 ,the scabbard may be taken from us2 the sword1 never4 ,the world spends too much time1 money and energy on the scabbard of life2 too little on the sword4 ,the scabbard represents outside show1 vanity and display2 the sword1 intrinsic worth4 ,the scabbard is ever the semblance2 the sword the reality4 ,the scabbard is the temporal2 the sword is the eternal4 ,the scabbard is the body2 the sword is the soul4 ,the scabbard typifies the material side of life2 the sword the true1 the spiritual1 the ideal4 ,the man who does not dare follow his own convictions1 but who lives in terror of what society will say1 falling prostrate before the golden calf of public opinion1 is living an empty life of mere show4 ,he is sacrificing his individuality1 his divine right to live his life in harmony with his own high ideals1 to a cowardly1 toadying fear of the world4 ,he is not a voice1 with the strong note of individual purpose2 he is but the thin echo of the voice of thousands4 ,he is not brightening1 sharpening and using the sword of his life in true warfare2 he is lazily ornamenting a useless scabbard with the hieroglyphics of his folly4 ,the man who lives beyond his means1 who mortgages his future for his present1 who is generous before he is just1 who is sacrificing everything to keep up with the procession of his superiors1 is really losing much of life4 ,he1 too1 is decorating the scabbard1 and letting the sword rust in its sheath4 ,life is not a competition with others4 ,in its truest sense it is rivalry with ourselves4 ,we should each day seek to break the record of our yesterday4 ,we should seek each day to live stronger1 better1 truer lives2 each day to master some weakness of yesterday2 each day to repair past follies2 each day to surpass ourselves4 ,and this is but progress4 ,and individual1 conscious progress1 progress unending and unlimited1 is the one great thing that differentiates man from all the other animals4 ,then we will care naught for the pretty1 useless decorations of society's approval on the scabbard4 ,for us it will be enough to know that the blade of our purpose is kept ever keen and sharp for the defense of right and truth1 never to wrong the rights of others1 but ever to right the wrongs of ourselves and those around us4 ,reputation is what the world thinks a man is2 character is what he really is4 ,anyone can play shuttlecock with a man's reputation2 his character is his alone4 ,no one can injure his character but he himself4 ,character is the sword2 reputation is the scabbard4 ,many men acquire insomnia in standing guard over their reputation1 while their character gives them no concern4 ,often they make new dents in their character in their attempt to cut a deep1 deceptive filigree on the scabbard of their reputation4 ,reputation is the shell a man discards when he leaves life for immortality4 ,his character he takes with him4 ,the woman who spends thousands in charitable donations1 and is hard and uncharitable in her judgments1 sentimentally sympathetic with human sin and weakness in the abstract1 while she arrogates to herself omniscience in her harsh condemnation of individual lapses1 is charitable only on the outside4 ,she is letting her tongue undo the good work of her hand4 ,she is too enthusiastic in decorating the scabbard of publicity to think of the sword of real love of humanity4 ,he who carries avarice to the point of becoming a miser1 hoarding gold that is made useless to him because it does not fulfill its one function1 circulation1 and regarding the necessities of life as luxuries1 is one of ,nature's jests1 that would be humorous were it not so serious4 ,he is the most difficult animal to classify in the whole natural history of humanity--he has so many of the virtues4 ,he is a striking example of ambition1 economy1 frugality1 persistence1 will-power1 self-denial1 loyalty to purpose and generosity to his heirs4 ,these noble qualities he spoils in the application4 ,his specialty is the scabbard of life4 ,he spends his days in making a solid gold scabbard for the tin sword of a wasted existence4 ,the shoddy airs and ostentations1 extravagance1 and prodigality of some who have suddenly become rich1 is goldplating the scabbard without improving the blade4 ,the superficial veneer of refinement really accentuates the native vulgarity4 ,the more you polish woodwork1 the more you reveal the grain4 ,some of the sudden legatees of fortune have the wisdom to acquire the reality of refinement through careful training4 ,this is the true method of putting the sword itself in order instead of begemming the scabbard4 ,the girl who marries merely for money or for a title1 is a feminine ,esau of the beginning of the century4 ,she is selling her birthright of love for the pottage of an empty name1 forfeiting the possibility of a life of love1 all that true womanhood should hold most dear1 for a mere bag of gold or a crown4 ,she is decorating the scabbard with a crest and heraldic designs1 and with ornaments of pure gold set with jewels4 ,she feels that this will be enough for life1 and that she does not need love1--real love1 that has made this world a paradise1 despite all the other people present4 ,she does not realize that there is but one real reason1 but one justification for marriage1 and that is1--love2 all the other motives are not reasons1 they are only excuses4 ,the phrase1 marrying a man for his money1 as the world bluntly puts it1 is incorrect--the woman merely marries the money1 and takes the man as an incumbrance or mortgage on the property4 ,the man who procrastinates1 filling his ears with the lovely song of to-morrow1 is following the easiest and most restful method of shortening the possibilities of life4 ,procrastination is stifling action by delay1 it is killing decision by inactivity1 it is drifting on the river of time1 instead of rowing bravely toward a desired harbor4 ,it is watching the sands in the hour-glass run down before beginning any new work1 then reversing the glass and repeating the observation4 ,the folly of man in thus delaying is apparent1 when any second his life may stop1 and the sands of that single hour may run their course1--and he will not be there to see4 ,delay is the narcotic that paralyzes energy4 ,when ,alexander was asked how he conquered the world1 he said3 ,by not delaying4 ,let us not put off till to-morrow the duty of to-day2 that which our mind tells us should be done to-day1 our mind and body should execute4 ,to-day is the sword we should hold and use2 to-morrow is but the scabbard from which each new to-day is withdrawn4 ,the man who wears an oppressive1 pompous air of dignity1 because he has accomplished some little work of importance1 because he is vested with a brief mantle of authority1 loses sight of the true perspective of life4 ,he is destitute of humor2 he takes himself seriously4 ,it is a thousand-dollar scabbard on a two-dollar sword4 ,the man who is guilty of envy is the victim of the oldest vice in the history of the world1 the meanest and most despicable of human traits4 ,it began in the ,garden of ,eden1 when ,satan envied ,adam and ,eve4 ,it caused the downfall of man and the first murder--,cain's unbrotherly act to ,abel4 ,envy is a paradoxic vice4 ,it cannot suffer bravely the prosperity of another1 it has mental dyspepsia because someone else is feasting1 it makes its owner's clothes turn into rags at sight of another's velvet4 ,envy is the malicious contemplation of the beauty1 honors1 success1 happiness1 or triumph of another4 ,it is the mud that inferiority throws at success4 ,envy is the gangrene of unsatisfied ambition1 it eats away purpose and kills energy4 ,it is egotism gone to seed2 it always finds the secret of its non-success in something outside itself4 ,envy is the scabbard1 but emulation is the sword4 ,emulation regards the success of another as an object lesson2 it seeks in the triumph of another the why1 the reason1 the inspiration of method4 ,it seeks to attain the same heights by the path it thus discovers1 not to hurl down from his eminence him who points out the way of attainment4 ,let us keep the sword of emulation ever brightened and sharpened in the battle of honest effort1 not idly dulling and rusting in the scabbard of envy4 ,the supreme folly of the world1 the saddest depths to which the human mind can sink1 is atheism4 ,he surely is to be pitied who permits the illogical philosophy of petty infidels1 or his misinterpretations of the revelations of science1 to cheat him of his ,god4 ,he pins his faith to some ingenious sophistry in the reasoning of those whose books he has read to sum up for him the whole problem1 and in hopeless egotism shuts his eyes to the million proofs in nature and life1 because the full plans of ,omnipotence are not made clear to him4 ,on the technicality of his failure to understand some one point--perhaps it is why sin1 sorrow1 suffering and injustice exist in the world--he declares he will not believe4 ,he might as well disbelieve in the sky above him because he cannot see it all2 discredit the air he breathes because it is invisible2 doubt the reality of the ocean because his feeble vision can take in but a few miles of the great sea2 deny even life itself because he cannot see it1 and no anatomist has found the subtle essence to hold it up to view on the end of his scalpel4 ,he dares to disbelieve in ,god despite ,his countless manifestations1 because he is not taken into the full confidence of the ,creator and permitted to look over and check off the ground-plans of the universe4 ,he sheathes the sword of belief in the dingy scabbard of infidelity4 ,he does not see the proof of ,god in the daily miracle of the rising and setting of the sun1 in the seasons1 in the birds1 in the flowers1 in the countless stars1 moving in their majestic regularity at the command of eternal law1 in the presence of love1 justice1 truth in the hearts of men1 in that supreme confidence that is inborn in humanity1 making even the lowest savage worship the ,infinite in some form4 ,it is the petty vanity of cheap reasoning that makes man permit the misfit scabbard of infidelity to hide from him the glory of the sword of belief4 ,the philosophy of swords and scabbards is as true of nations as of individuals4 ,when ,france committed the great crime of the nineteenth century1 by condemning ,dreyfus to infamy and isolation1 deafening her ears to the cries of justice1 and seeking to cover her shame with greater shame1 she sheathed the sword of a nation's honor in the scabbard of a nation's crime4 ,the breaking of the sword of ,dreyfus when he was cruelly degraded before the army1 typified the degradation of the ,french nation in breaking the sword of justice and preserving carefully the empty scabbard with its ironic inscription1 ,vive la justice4 ,the scabbard is ever useless in the hour of emergency2 then it is upon the sword itself that we must rely4 ,then the worthlessness of show1 sham1 pretence1 gilded weakness is revealed to us4 ,then the trivialities of life are seen in their true form4 ,the nothingness of everything but the real1 the tried1 the true1 is made luminant in an instant4 ,then we know whether our living has been one of true preparation1 of keeping the sword clean1 pure1 sharp and ready1 or one of mere idle1 meaningless1 day-by-day markings of folly on the empty scabbard of a wasted life4 ,the ,conquest of the ,preventable ,the ,conquest of the ,preventable ,this world would be a delightful place to live in--if it were not for the people4 ,they really cause all the trouble4 ,man's worst enemy is always man4 ,he began to throw the responsibility of his transgressions on some one else in the ,garden of ,eden1 and he has been doing so ever since4 ,the greater part of the pain1 sorrow and misery in life is purely a human invention1 yet man1 with cowardly irreverence1 dares to throw the responsibility on ,god4 ,it comes through breaking laws1 laws natural1 physical1 civic1 mental or moral4 ,these are laws which man knows1 but he disregards2 he takes chances2 he thinks he can dodge results in some way4 ,but ,nature says1 ,he who breaks1 pays4 ,there are no dead-letter laws on the divine statute-books of life4 ,when a man permits a torchlight procession to parade through a powder magazine1 it is not courteous for him to refer to the subsequent explosion as one of the mysterious workings of ,providence4 ,nine tenths of the world's sorrow1 misfortune and unhappiness is preventable4 ,the daily newspapers are the great chroniclers of the dominance of the unnecessary4 ,paragraph after paragraph1 column after column1 and page after page of the dark story--accidents1 disasters1 crime1 scandal1 human weakness and sin--might be checked off with the word preventable4 ,in each instance were our information full enough1 our analysis keen enough1 we could trace each back to its cause1 to the weakness or the wrong from which it emanated4 ,sometimes it is carelessness1 inattention1 neglect of duty1 avarice1 anger1 jealousy1 dissipation1 betrayal of trust1 selfishness1 hypocrisy1 revenge1 dishonesty1--any of a hundred phases of the preventable4 ,that which can be prevented1 should be prevented4 ,it all rests with the individual4 ,the preventable exists in three degrees3 ,first1 that which is due to the individual solely and directly2 second1 that which he suffers through the wrong-doing of those around him1 other individuals2 third1 those instances wherein he is the unnecessary victim of the wrongs of society1 the innocent legatee of the folly of humanity--and society is but the massing of thousands of individuals with the heritage of manners1 customs and laws they have received from the past4 ,we sometimes feel heart-sick and weary in facing failure1 when the fortune that seemed almost in our fingers slips away because of the envy1 malice or treachery of some one else4 ,we bow under the weight of a sorrow that makes all life grow dark and the star of hope fade from our vision2 or we meet some unnecessary misfortune with a dumb1 helpless despair4 ,it is all wrong1 we say1 it is cruel1 it is unjust4 ,why is it permitted8 ,and1 in the very intensity of our feeling1 we half-unconsciously repeat the words over and over again1 in monotonous iteration1 as if in some way the very repetition might bring relief1 might somehow soothe us4 ,yet1 in most instances1 it could be prevented4 ,no suffering is caused in the world by right4 ,whatever sorrow there is that is preventable1 comes from inharmony or wrong of some kind4 ,in the divine economy of the universe most of the evil1 pain and suffering are unnecessary1 even when overruled for good1 and perhaps1 if our knowledge were perfect1 it would be seen that none is necessary1 that all is preventable4 ,the fault is mine1 or yours1 or the fault of the world4 ,it is always individual4 ,the world itself is but the cohesive united force of the thoughts1 words and deeds of millions who have lived or who are living1 like you and me4 ,by individuals has the great wrong that causes our preventable sorrow been built up1 by individuals must it be weakened and transformed to right4 ,and in this1 too1 it is to a great degree our fault2 we care so little about rousing public sentiment1 of lashing it into activity unless it concerns us individually4 ,the old ,greek fable of ,atlas1 the ,african king1 who supported the world on his shoulders1 has a modern application4 ,the individual is the ,atlas upon whom the fate of the world rests to-day4 ,let each individual do his best1--and the result is foreordained2 it is but a matter of the unconquerable massing of the units4 ,let each individual bear his part as faithfully as though all the responsibility rested on him1 yet as calmly1 as gently and as unworried as though all the responsibility rested on others4 ,most accidents are preventable--as at ,balaclava1 someone has blundered4 ,one of the great disasters of the nineteenth century was the ,johnstown flood1 where the bursting of a dam caused the loss of more than six thousand lives4 ,the flood was not a mere accident1 it was a crime4 ,a leaking dam1 for more than a year known to be unsafe1 known to be unable to withstand any increased pressure1 stood at the head of the valley4 ,below it lay a chain of villages containing over forty-five thousand persons in the direct line of the flood4 ,when the heavy rains came the weakened dam gave way4 ,had there been one individual1 one member of the ,south ,fork ,fishing ,club brave enough to have done merely his duty1 one member with the courage to so move his fellows and to stir up public action to make the barrier safe1 over six thousand murders could have been prevented4 ,when a tired engineer1 sleepy from overwork1 can no longer cheat nature of her needed rest1 and1 drowsing for a moment in his cab1 fails to see the red signal light of danger1 or to heed the exploding of the warning torpedo1 the wreck that follows is not chargeable to the ,almighty4 ,it is but an awful memorial of a railroad corporation's struggle to save two dollars4 ,one ounce of prevention is worth six pounds of coroner's inquest4 ,it is a crime to balance the safety and sacredness of human life in the scales with the petty saving that comes from transforming a man into a mechanism and forgetting he has either a soul or a body4 ,true1 just and wise labor laws are part of society's weapon for fighting the preventable4 ,when a terrible fire makes a city desolate and a nation mourn1 the investigation that follows usually shows that a little human foresight could have prevented it1 or at least1 lessened the horror of it all4 ,if chemicals or dynamite are stored in any building in excess of what wise legislation declares is safe1 some one has been cruelly careless4 ,perhaps it is some inspector who has been disloyal to his trust1 by permitting bribes to chloroform his sense of duty4 ,if the lack of fire-escapes adds its quota to the list of deaths1 or if the avarice of the owner has made his building a fire-trap1 public feeling becomes intense1 the newspapers are justly loud in their protests1 and in demands that the guilty ones be punished4 ,if the laws already on the statute books do not cover the situation1 we hear from day to day1 new laws will be framed to make a repetition of the tragedy impossible2 we are promised all kinds of reforms2 the air seems filled with a spirit of regeneration2 the mercury of public indignation rises to the point where fever-heat seems a mild1 inadequate term4 ,then1 as the horror begins to fade in the perspective of the past1 men go quietly back to their own personal cares and duties1 and the mighty wave of righteous protest that threatened so much1 dies in gentle lapping on the shore4 ,what has been all men's concern seems soon to concern no one4 ,the tremendous energy of the authorities seems like the gesture of a drunken man1 that starts from his shoulder with a force that would almost fell an ox but when it reaches the hand it has expended itself1 and the hand drops listlessly in the air with hardly power enough to disturb the serenity of a butterfly4 ,there is always a little progress1 a slight advance1 and it is only the constant accumulation of these steps that is giving to the world greater dominion over the preventable4 ,constant vigilance is the price of the conquest of the preventable4 ,we have no right to admit any wrong or evil in the world as necessary1 until we have exhausted every precaution that human wisdom can suggest to prevent it4 ,when a man with a pistol in his right hand1 clumsily covered with a suspicious-looking handkerchief1 moved along in a line of people1 and presenting his left hand to ,president ,mc,kinley1 pressed his weapon to the breast of the ,chief ,executive of the ,american people1 some one of the secret service men1 paid by the nation to guard their ruler1 should have watched so zealously that the tragedy would have been impossible4 ,two ,presidents had already been sacrificed1 but twenty years of immunity had brought a dreamy sense of security that lessened the vigilance4 ,we should emulate the example of the insurance companies who decline certain risks that are extra hazardous4 ,poverty has no necessary place in life4 ,it is a disease that results from the weakness1 sin1 and selfishness of humanity4 ,nature is boundless in her generosity2 the world produces sufficient to give food1 clothing1 and comfort to every individual4 ,poverty is preventable4 ,poverty may result from the shiftlessness1 idleness1 intemperance1 improvidence1 lack of purpose or evil-doing of the individual himself4 ,if the causes do not exist in the individual1 they may be found in the second class1 in the wrong-doing of those around him1 in the oppression of labor by capital1 in the grinding process by which corporations seek to crush the individual4 ,the individual may be the victim of any of a thousand phases of the wrong of others4 ,the poverty caused by the third class1 the weakness and injustice of human laws and human institutions1 is also preventable1 but to reach the cause requires time and united heroic effort of all individuals4 ,in the battle against poverty1 those writers who seek to inflame the poor against the rich1 to foment discontent between labor and capital1 do grievous wrong to both4 ,what the world needs is to have the two brought closer together in the bonds of human brotherhood4 ,the poor should learn more of the cares1 responsibilities1 unrecorded charities1 and absorbing worries of the rich2 the rich should learn more intimately the sorrows1 privations1 struggles1 and despair of poverty4 ,the world is learning the great truth1 that the best way to prevent crime is to study the sociologic conditions in which it flourishes1 to seek to give each man a better chance of living his real life by removing1 if possible1 the elements that make wrong easy1 and to him1 almost necessary1 and by inspiring him to fight life's battle bravely with all the help others can give him4 ,science is coperating with religion in striving to conquer the evil at the root instead of the evil manifest as crime in the fruit of the branches4 ,it is so much wiser to prevent than to cure2 to keep some one from being burned is so much better than inventing new poultices for unnecessary hurts4 ,it is ever the little things that make up the sum of human misery4 ,all the wild animals of the world combined do but trifling damage1 when compared with the ravages of insect pests4 ,the crimes of humanity1 the sins that make us start back affrighted1 do not cause as much sorrow and unhappiness in life as the multitude of little sins1 of omission and commission1 that the individual1 and millions like him1 must meet every day4 ,they are not the evil deeds that the law can reach or punish1 they are but the infinity of petty wrongs for which man can never be tried until he stands with bowed head before the bar of justice of his own conscience4 ,the bitter words of anger and reproach that rise so easily to our lips and give us a moment's fleeting satisfaction in thus venting our feelings1 may change the current of the whole life of some one near to us4 ,the thoughtless speech1 revealing our lack of tact and sympathy1 cannot be recalled and made nothing by the plea1 ,i didn't think4 ,to sensitive souls this is no justification2 they feel that our hearts should be so filled with the instinct of love that our lips would need no tutor or guardian4 ,our unfulfilled duty may bring unhappiness and misery to hundreds4 ,the dressmaker's bill that a rich woman may toss lightly aside1 as being an affair of no moment1 to be settled at her serene pleasure1 may bring sorrow1 privation or even failure to her debtor1 and through her to a long chain of others4 ,the result1 if seen in all its stern reality1 seems out of all proportion to the cause4 ,there are places in the ,alps1 where great masses of snow are so lightly poised that even the report of a gun might start a vibration that would dislodge an avalanche1 and send it on its death-mission into the valley4 ,the individual who would live his life to the best that is within him must make each moment one of influence for good4 ,he must set before him as one of his ideals1 to be progressively realized in each day of his living3 ,if ,i cannot accomplish great deeds in the world1 ,i will do all the good ,i can by the faithful performance of the duties that come to my hand and being ever ready for all opportunities4 ,and ,i will consecrate myself to the conquest of the preventable4 ,let the individual say each day1 as he rises new-created to face a new life3 ,to-day no one in the world shall suffer because ,i live4 ,i will be kind1 considerate1 careful in thought and speech and act4 ,i will seek to discover the element that weakens me as a power in the world1 and that keeps me from living up to the fullness of my possibility4 ,that weakness ,i will master to-day4 ,i will conquer it1 at any cost4 ,when any failure or sorrow comes to the individual1 he should be glad if he can prove to himself that it was his fault1--for then he has the remedy in his own hands4 ,lying1 intrigue1 jealousy are never remedies that can prevent an evil4 ,they postpone it1 merely to augment it4 ,they are merely deferring payment of a debt which has to be met later1--with compound interest4 ,it is like trying to put out a fire by pouring kerosene on the flames4 ,jealousy in the beginning is but a thought1--in the end it may mean the gallows4 ,selfishness often assumes seemingly harmless guises1 yet it is the foundation of the world's unhappiness4 ,disloyalty may seem to be a rare quality1 but society is saturated with it4 ,judas acquired his reputation because of his proficiency in it4 ,sympathy which should be the atmosphere of every individual life is as rare as human charity4 ,the world is suffering from an over-supply of unnecessary evils1 created by man4 ,they should be made luxuries1 then man could dispense with them4 ,the world needs societies formed of members pledged to the individual conquest of preventable pain and sorrow4 ,the individual has no right that runs counter to the right of any one else4 ,there are no solo parts in the eternal music of life4 ,each must pour out his life in duo with every other4 ,every moment must be one of choice1 of good or of evil4 ,which will the individual choose8 ,his life will be his answer4 ,let him dedicate his life to making the world around him brighter1 sweeter and better1 and by his conquest of preventable pain and sorrow he will day by day get fuller revelation of the glory of the possibilities of individual living1 and come nearer and nearer to the realization of his ideals4 ,the ,companionship of ,tolerance ,the ,companionship of ,tolerance ,intolerance is part of the unnecessary friction of life4 ,it is prejudice on the war-path4 ,intolerance acknowledges only one side of any question1--its own4 ,it is the assumption of a monopoly in thinking1 the attitude of the man who believes he has a corner on wisdom and truth1 in some phase of life4 ,tolerance is a calm1 generous respect for the opinions of others1 even of one's enemies4 ,it recognizes the right of every man to think his own thoughts1 to live his own life1 to be himself in all things1 so long as he does not run counter to the rights of others4 ,it means giving to others the same freedom that we ourselves crave4 ,tolerance is silent justice1 blended with sympathy4 ,if he who is tolerant desires to show to others the truth as he sees it1 he seeks with gentleness and deference to point out the way in which he has found peace1 and certainty1 and rest2 he tries to raise them to the recognition of higher ideals1 as he has found them inspiring2 he endeavors in a spirit of love and comradeship with humanity to lead others rather than to drive them1 to persuade and convince rather than to overawe and eclipse4 ,tolerance does not use the battering-ram of argument or the club of sarcasm1 or the rapier of ridicule1 in discussing the weakness or wrongs of individuals4 ,it may lash or scourge the evil of an age1 but it is kind and tender with the individual2 it may flay the sin1 but not the sinner4 ,tolerance makes the individual regard truth as higher than personal opinion2 it teaches him to live with the windows of his life open towards the east to catch the first rays of the sunlight of truth no matter from whom it comes1 and to realize that the faith that he so harshly condemns may have the truth he desires if he would only look into it and test it before he repudiates it so cavalierly4 ,this world of ours is growing better1 more tolerant and liberal4 ,the days when difference in political opinions was solved and cured by the axe and the block2 when a man's courage to stand by his religion meant facing the horrors of the ,inquisition or the cruelty of the stake1 when daring to think their own thoughts on questions of science brought noble men to a pallet of straw and a dungeon cell1--these days have1 happily1 passed away4 ,intolerance and its twin brother1 ,ignorance1 weaken and die when the pure white light of wisdom is thrown upon them4 ,knowledge is the death-knell of intolerance--not mere book-learning1 nor education in schools or colleges1 nor accumulation of mere statistics1 nor shreds of information1 but the large sympathetic study of the lives1 manners1 customs1 aims1 thoughts1 struggles1 progress1 motives and ideals of other ages1 other nations1 other individuals4 ,tolerance unites men in the closer bonds of human brotherhood1 brings them together in unity and sympathy in essentials and gives them greater liberality and freedom in non-essentials4 ,napoleon when ,first ,consul said1 ,let there be no more ,jacobins1 nor ,moderates1 nor ,royalists3 let all be ,frenchmen4 ,sectionalism and sectarianism always mean concentration on the body of a part at the expense of the soul of the whole4 ,the religious world to-day needs more ,christ and less sects in its gospel4 ,when ,christ lived on earth ,christianity was a unit2 when he died sects began4 ,there are in ,america to-day1 hundreds of small towns1 scattered over the face of the land1 that are over-supplied with churches4 ,in many of these towns1 just emerging from the short dresses of village-hood1 there are a dozen or more weak churches1 struggling to keep their organization alive4 ,between these churches there is often only a slight difference in creed1 the tissue-paper wall of some technicality of belief4 ,half-starved1 dragging out a mere existence1 trying to fight a large mortgage with a small congregation and a small contribution box1 there is little spiritual fervor4 ,by combination1 by coperation1 by tolerance1 by the mutual surrender of non-essentials and a strong1 vital concentration and unity on the great fundamental realities of ,christianity1 their spiritual health and possibilities could be marvellously increased4 ,three or four sturdy1 live1 growing churches would then take the place of a dozen strugglers4 ,why have a dozen weak bridges across a stream1 if greater good can come from three or four stronger ones1 or even a single strongest bridge8 ,the world needs a great religious trust which will unite the churches into a single body of faith1 to precede and prepare the way for the greater religious trust1 predicted in ,holy ,writ1--the millennium4 ,we can ever be loyal to our own belief1 faithful to our own cause1 without condemning those who give their fidelity in accord with their own conscience or desires4 ,the great reformers of the world1 men who are honestly and earnestly seeking to solve the great social problems and to provide means for meeting human sin and wrong1 agreeing perfectly in their estimate of the gravity and awfulness of the situation1 often propose diametrically opposite methods4 ,they are regarding the subject from different points of view1 and it would be intolerance for us1 who are looking on1 to condemn the men on either side merely because we cannot accept their verdict as our own4 ,on the great national questions brought before statesmen for their decision1 men equally able1 equally sincere1 just and unselfish1 differ in their remedies4 ,one1 as a surgeon1 suggests cutting away the offending matter1 the use of the knife1--this typifies the sword1 or war4 ,another1 as a doctor1 urges medicine that will absorb and cure1--this is the prescription of the diplomat4 ,the third suggests waiting for developments1 leaving the case with time and nature1--this is the conservative4 ,but all three classes agree as to the evil and the need of meeting it4 ,the conflict of authorities on every great question to be settled by human judgment should make us tolerant of the opinion of others1 though we may be as confident of the rightness of the judgment we have formed as if it were foreordained from the day of the creation4 ,but if we receive any new light that makes us see clearer1 let us change at once without that foolish consistency of some natures that continue to use last year's almanac as a guide to this year's eclipses4 ,tolerance is ever progressive4 ,intolerance believes it is born with the peculiar talent for managing the affairs of others1 without any knowledge of the details1 better than the men themselves1 who are giving their life's thought to the vital questions4 ,intolerance is the voice of the ,pharisee still crying through the ages and proclaiming his infallibility4 ,let us not seek to fit the whole world with shoes from our individual last4 ,if we think that all music ceased to be written when ,wagner laid down the pen1 let us not condemn those who find enjoyment in light opera4 ,perhaps they may sometime rise to our heights of artistic appreciation and learn the proper parts to applaud4 ,if their lighter music satisfies their souls1 is our ,wagner doing more for us8 ,it is not fair to take from a child its rag doll in order to raise it to the appreciation of the ,venus de ,milo4 ,the rag doll is its ,venus2 it may require a long series of increasingly better dolls to lead it to realize the beauties of the marble woman of ,melos4 ,intolerance makes its great mistakes in measuring the needs of others from its own standpoint4 ,intolerance ignores the personal equation in life4 ,what would be an excellent book for a man of forty might be worse than useless for a boy of thirteen4 ,the line of activity in life that we would choose as our highest dream of bliss1 as our ,paradise1 might1 if forced on another1 be to him worse than the after-death fate of the wicked1 according to the old-fashioned theologians4 ,what would be a very acceptable breakfast for a sparrow would be a very poor meal for an elephant4 ,when we sit in solemn judgment of the acts and characters of those around us and condemn them with the easy nonchalance of our ignorance1 yet with the assumption of omniscience we reveal our intolerance4 ,tolerance ever leads us to recognize and respect the differences in the natures of those who are near to us1 to make allowance for differences in training1 in opportunities1 in ideals1 in motives1 in tastes1 in opinions1 in temperaments and in feelings4 ,intolerance seeks to live other people's lives for them2 sympathy helps us to live their lives with them4 ,we must accept humanity with all its weakness1 sin and folly and seek to make the best of it1 just as humanity must accept us4 ,we learn this lesson as we grow older1 and1 with the increase of our knowledge of the world1 we see how much happier life would have been for us and for others if we had been more tolerant1 more charitable1 more generous4 ,no one in the world is absolutely perfect2 if he were he would probably be translated from earth to heaven1 as was ,elijah of old1 without waiting for the sprouting of wings or the passport of death4 ,it is a hard lesson for youth to learn1 but we must realize1 as the old college professor said to his class of students1 bowed with the consciousness of their wisdom3 ,no one of us is infallible1 no1 not even the youngest4 ,let us accept the little failings of those around us as we accept facts in nature1 and make the best of them1 as we accept the hard shells of nuts1 the skin of fruits1 the shadow that always accompanies light4 ,these are not absolute faults1 they are often but individual peculiarities4 ,intolerance sees the mote in its neighbor's eye as larger than the beam in its own4 ,instead of concentrating our thought on the one weak spot in a character1 let us seek to find some good quality that offsets it1 just as a credit may more than cancel a debt on a ledger account4 ,let us not constantly speak of roses having thorns1 let us be thankful that the thorns have roses4 ,in ,nature there are both thorns and prickles2 thorns are organic1 they have their root deep in the fibre and the being of the twig2 prickles are superficial1 they are lightly held in the cuticle or covering of the twig4 ,there are thorns in character that reveal an internal inharmony1 that can be controlled only from within2 there are also prickles1 which are merely peculiarities of temperament1 that the eye of tolerance may overlook and the finger of charity can gently remove4 ,the tenderness of tolerance will illuminate and glorify the world1--as moonlight makes all things beautiful1--if we only permit it4 ,measuring a man by his weakness alone is unjust4 ,this little frailty may be but a small mortgage on a large estate1 and it is narrow and petty to judge by the mortgage on a character4 ,let us consider the equity1 the excess of the real value over the claim against it4 ,unless we sympathetically seek to discover the motive behind the act1 to see the circumstances that inspired a course of living1 the target at which a man is aiming1 our snap condemnations are but arrogant and egotistic expressions of our intolerance4 ,all things must be studied relatively instead of absolutely4 ,the hour hand on a clock does just as valuable work as the minute hand1 even though it is shorter and seems to do only one-twelfth as much4 ,intolerance in the home circle shows itself in overdiscipline1 in an atmosphere of severity heavy with prohibitions4 ,the home becomes a place strewn with ,please keep off the grass signs4 ,it means the suppression of individuality1 the breaking of the wills of children1 instead of their development and direction4 ,it is the foolish attempt to mould them from the outside1 as a potter does clay2 the higher conception is the wise training that helps the child to help himself in his own growth4 ,parents often forget their own youth2 they do not sympathize with their children in their need of pleasure1 of dress1 of companionship4 ,there should be a few absolutely firm rules on essentials1 the basic principles of living1 with the largest possible leeway for the varying manifestations of individuality in unimportant phases4 ,confidence1 sympathy1 love and trust would generate a spirit of tolerance and sweetness that would work marvels4 ,intolerance converts live1 natural children into prigs of counterfeit virtue and irritatingly good automatons of obedience4 ,tolerance is a state of mutual concessions4 ,in the family life there should be this constant reciprocity of independence1 this mutual forbearance4 ,it is the instinctive recognition of the sacredness of individuality1 the right of each to live his own life as best he can4 ,when we set ourselves up as dictators to tyrannize over the thoughts1 words and acts of others1 we are sacrificing the kingly power of influence with which we may help others1 for the petty triumph of tyranny which repels and loses them4 ,perhaps one reason why the sons of great and good men so often go astray is that the earnestness1 strength and virtue of the father1 exacting strict obedience to the letter of the law1 kills the appreciation of the spirit of it1 breeding an intolerance that forces submission under which the fire of protest and rebellion is smouldering1 ready to burst into flame at the first breath of freedom4 ,between brother and sister1 husband and wife1 parent and child1 master and servant1 the spirit of tolerance1 of making allowances1 transforms a house of gloom and harshness into a home of sweetness and love4 ,in the sacred relation of parent to child there always comes a time when the boy becomes a man1 when she whom the father still regards but as a little girl faces the great problems of life as an individual4 ,the coming of years of discretion brings a day when the parents must surrender their powers of trusteeship1 when the individual enters upon his heritage of freedom and responsibility4 ,parents have still the right and privilege of counsel and of helpful1 loving insight their children should respect4 ,but in meeting a great question1 when the son or daughter stands before a problem that means happiness or misery for a lifetime1 it must be for him or for her to decide4 ,coercion1 bribery1 undue influence1 threats of disinheritance1 and the other familiar weapons1 are cruel1 selfish1 arrogant and unjust4 ,a child is a human being1 free to make his own life1 not a slave4 ,there is a clearly marked dead-line that it is intolerance to cross4 ,let us realize that tolerance is ever broadening2 it develops sympathy1 weakens worry and inspires calmness4 ,it is but charity and optimism1 it is ,christianity as a living eternal fact1 not a mere theory4 ,let us be tolerant of the weakness of others1 sternly intolerant of our own4 ,let us seek to forgive and forget the faults of others1 losing sight1 to a degree1 of what they are in the thought of what they may become4 ,let us fill their souls with the inspiring revelation of their possibilities in the majestic evolution march of humanity4 ,let us see1 for ourselves and for them1 in the acorn of their present the towering oak of their future4 ,we should realize the right of every human soul to work out its own destiny1 with our aid1 our sympathy1 our inspiration1 if we are thus privileged to help him to live his life2 but it is intolerance to try to live it for him4 ,he sits alone on the throne of his individuality2 he must reign alone1 and at the close of his rule must give his own account to the ,god of the ages of the deeds of his kingship4 ,life is a dignified privilege1 a glorious prerogative of every man1 and it is arrogant intolerance that touches the sacred ark with the hand of unkind condemnation4 ,the ,things that ,come too ,late ,the ,things that ,come too ,late ,time seems a grim old humorist1 with a fondness for afterthoughts4 ,the things that come too late are part of his sarcasm4 ,each generation is engaged in correcting the errors of its predecessors1 and in supplying new blunders for its own posterity to set right4 ,each generation bequeaths to its successor its wisdom and its folly1 its wealth of knowledge and its debts of error and failure4 ,the things that come too late thus mean only the delayed payments on old debts4 ,they mean that the world is growing wiser1 and better1 truer1 nobler1 and more just4 ,it is emerging from the dark shadows of error into the sunshine of truth and justice4 ,they prove that ,time is weaving a beauteous fabric from the warp and woof of humanity1 made up of shreds and tangles of error and truth4 ,the things that come too late are the fuller wisdom1 the deferred honors1 the truer conception of the work of pioneers1 the brave sturdy fighters who battled alone for truth and were misunderstood and unrecognized4 ,it means the world's finer attitude toward life4 ,if looked at superficially1 the things that come too late make us feel helpless1 hopeless1 pessimistic2 if seen with the eye of deeper wisdom1 they reveal to us the grand evolution march of humanity toward higher things4 ,it is ,nature's proclamation that1 in the end1 ,right must triumph1 ,truth must conquer1 and ,justice must reign4 ,for us1 as individuals1 it is a warning and an inspiration1--a warning against withholding love1 charity1 kindness1 sympathy1 justice1 and helpfulness1 till it is too late2 an inspiration for us to live ever at our best1 ever up to the maximum of effort1 not worrying about results1 but serenely confident that they must come4 ,it takes over thirty years for the light of some of the stars to reach the earth1 some a hundred1 some a thousand years4 ,those stars do not become visible till their light reaches and reacts on human vision4 ,it takes an almost equal time for the light of some of the world's great geniuses to meet real1 seeing eyes4 ,then we see these men as the brilliant stars in the world's gallery of immortal great ones4 ,this is why contemporary reputation rarely indicates lasting fame4 ,we are constantly mistaking fireflies of cleverness for stars of genius4 ,but ,time brings all things right4 ,the fame1 though1 brings no joy1 or encouragement1 or inspiration to him who has passed beyond this world's lights and shadows2 it has the sadness of the honors that come too late1 a touch of the farcical mingled with its pathos4 ,tardy recognition is better than none at all1 it is better1 though late1 than never2 but it is so much truer and kinder and more valuable if never late4 ,we are so inclined to send our condemnation and our snapshot criticisms by express1 and our careful1 honest commendation by slow freight4 ,in ,october1 #afce1 ,roger ,williams1 because of his inspiring pleas for individual liberty1 was ordered by the ,general ,court of ,massachusetts to leave the colony forever4 ,he went to ,rhode ,island1 where he lived for nearly fifty years4 ,but the official conscience grew a little restless1 and a few years ago1 in ,april1 #ahii1 ,massachusetts actually made atonement for its rash act4 ,the original papers1 yellow1 faded1 and crumbling1 were taken from their pigeonhole tomb1 and by an ordinary motion1 made1 seconded1 and adopted1 the order of banishment was solemnly annulled and repealed1 and made of no effect whatever4 ,the ban1 under which ,roger ,williams had lain for over #bfj years1 was lifted4 ,and there is no reason now1 according to law1 why ,roger ,williams cannot enter the ,state of ,massachusetts and reside therein4 ,the action was to the credit and honor of the ,state2 it was right in its spirit1 and ,roger being in the spirit for more than two centuries1 may have smiled gently and understood4 ,but the reparation was really--over-delayed4 ,the mistakes1 the sin and folly of one age may be partially atoned for by a succeeding age1 but the individual stands alone4 ,for what we do and for what we leave undone1 we alone are responsible4 ,if we permit the golden hours that might be consecrated to higher things to trickle like sand through our fingers1 no one can ever restore them to us4 ,human affection is fed by signs and tokens of that affection4 ,merely having kindly feelings is not enough1 they should be made manifest in action4 ,the parched earth is not refreshed by the mere fact of water in the clouds1 it is only when the blessing of rain actually descends that it awakens to new life4 ,we are so ready to say ,he knows how much ,i think of him1 and to assume that as a fitting substitute for expression4 ,we may know that the sun is shining somewhere and still shiver for lack of its glow and warmth4 ,love should be constantly made evident in little acts of thoughtfulness1 words of sweetness and appreciation1 smiles and handclasps of esteem4 ,it should be shown to be a loving reality instead of a memory by patience1 forbearance1 courtesy1 and kindness4 ,this theory of presumed confidence in the persistence of affection is one of the sad phases of married life4 ,we should have roses of love1 ever-blooming1 ever-breathing perfume1 instead of dried roses pressed in the family ,bible1 merely for reference1 as a memorial of what was1 instead of guarantee of what is4 ,matrimony too often shuts the door of life and leaves sentiment1 consideration and chivalry on the outside4 ,the feeling may possibly be still alive1 but it does not reveal itself rightly2 the rhymed poetry of loving has changed to blank verse and later into dull prose4 ,as the boy said of his father3 ,he's a ,christian1 but he's not working much at it now4 ,love without manifestation does not feed the heart any more than a locked bread-box feeds the body2 it does not illuminate and brighten the round of daily duties any more than an unlit lamp lightens a room4 ,there is often such a craving in the heart of a husband or a wife for expression in words of human love and tenderness that they are welcomed no matter from what source they may come4 ,if there were more courtships continued after marriage1 the work of the divorce courts would be greatly lessened4 ,this realization is often one of the things that come too late4 ,there are more people in this world hungering for kindness1 sympathy1 comradeship and love1 than are hungering for bread4 ,we often refrain from giving a hearty word of encouragement1 praise or congratulation to some one1 even where we recognize that our feelings are known1 for fear of making him conceited or overconfident4 ,let us tear down these dykes of reserve1 these walls of petty repression1 and let in the flood of our feelings4 ,there have been few monuments reared to the memory of those who have failed in life because of overpraise4 ,there is more chiseled flattery on tombstones than was ever heard in life by the dead those stones now guard4 ,man does not ask for flattery1 he does not long for fulsome praise1 he wants the honest1 ringing sound of recognition of what he has done1 fair appreciation of what he is doing1 and sympathy with what he is striving to do4 ,why is it that death makes us suddenly conscious of a hundred virtues in a man who seemed commonplace and faulty in life8 ,then we speak as though an angel had been living in our town for years and we had suddenly discovered him4 ,if he could only have heard these words while living1 if he could have discounted the eulogies at1 say even sixty per cent1 they would have been an inspiration to him when weary1 worn and worried by the problems of living4 ,but now the ears are stilled to all earthly music1 and even if they could hear our praise1 the words would be but useless messengers of love that came too late4 ,it is right to speak well of the dead1 to remember their strength and to forget their weakness1 and to render to their memory the expressions of honor1 justice1 love and sorrow that fill our hearts4 ,but it is the living1 ever the living that need it most4 ,the dead have passed beyond the helpfulness2 our wildest cries of agony and regret bring no answering echo from the silences of the unknown4 ,those who are facing the battle of life1 still seeking bravely to do and to be1--they need our help1 our companionship1 our love1 all that is best in us4 ,better is the smallest flower placed in our warm1 living hands than mountains of roses banked round our casket4 ,if we have failed in our expressions to the dead1 the deep sense of our sorrow and the instinctive rush of feeling proclaim the vacuum of duty we now seek too late to fill4 ,but there is one atonement that is not too late4 ,it is in making all humanity legatees of the kindness and human love that we regret has been unexpended1 it is in bringing brightness1 courage and cheer into the lives of those around us4 ,thus our regret will be shown to be genuine1 not a mere temporary gush of emotionalism4 ,it is during the formative period1 the time when a man is seeking to get a foothold1 that help counts for most1 when even the slightest aid is great4 ,a few books lent to ,andrew ,carnegie when he was beginning his career were to him an inspiration2 he has nobly repaid the loan1 made posterity his debtor a million-fold by his beneficence in sprinkling libraries over the whole country4 ,help the saplings1 the young growing trees of vigor1--the mighty oaks have no need of your aid4 ,the heartening words should come when needed1 not when they seem only hypocritic protestations1 or dextrous preparations for future favors4 ,columbus1 surrounded by his mutinous crew1 threatening to kill him1 alone amid the crowd1 had no one to stand by him4 ,but he neared land1 and riches opened before them2 then they fell at his feet1 proclaimed him almost a god and said he truly was inspired from ,heaven4 ,success transfigured him--a long line of pebbly beach and a few trees made him divine4 ,a little patience along the way1 a little closer companionship1 a little brotherly love in his hours of watching1 waiting1 and hoping would have been great balm to his soul4 ,it is in childhood that pleasures count most1 when the slightest investment of kindness brings largest returns4 ,let us give the children sunlight1 love1 companionship1 sympathy with their little troubles and worries that seem to them so great1 genuine interest in their growing hopes1 their vague1 unproportioned dreams and yearnings4 ,let us put ourselves into their places1 view the world through their eyes so that we may gently correct the errors of their perspective by our greater wisdom4 ,such trifles will make them genuinely happy1 happier by far than things a thousand times greater that come too late4 ,procrastination is the father of a countless family of things that come too late4 ,procrastination means making an appointment with opportunity to call again to-morrow4 ,it kills self-control1 saps mental energy1 makes man a creature of circumstances instead of their creator4 ,there is one brand of procrastination that is a virtue4 ,it is never doing to-day a wrong that can be put off till to-morrow1 never performing an act to-day that may make to-morrow ashamed4 ,there are little estrangements in life1 little misunderstandings that are passed by in silence between friends1 each too closely armored with pride1 and enamoured with self to break4 ,there is a time when a few straightforward words would set it all right1 the clouds would break and the sunshine of love burst forth again4 ,but each nurses a weak1 petty sense of dignity1 the rift grows wider1 they drift apart1 and each goes his lonely way1 hungering for the other4 ,they may waken to realization too late to piece the broken strands of affection into a new life4 ,the wisdom that comes too late in a thousand phases of life usually has an irritating1 depressing effect on the individual4 ,he should charge a large part of it to the account of experience4 ,if no wisdom came too late there would be no experience4 ,it means1 after all1 only that we are wiser to-day than we were yesterday1 that we see all things in truer relation1 that our pathway of life has been illuminated4 ,the world is prone to judge by results4 ,it is glad to be a stockholder in our success and prosperity1 but it too often avoids the assessments of sympathy and understanding4 ,the man who pulls against the stream may have but a stanch two or three to help him4 ,when the tide turns and his craft swiftens its course and he is carried along without effort1 he finds boats hurrying to him from all directions as if he had suddenly woke up and found himself in a regatta4 ,the help then comes too late2 he does not need it4 ,he himself must then guard against the temptation of cynicism and coldness and selfishness4 ,then he should realize and determine that what he terms the way of the world shall not be his way4 ,that he will not be too late with his stimulus to others who have struggled bravely as he has done1 but who being less strong may drop the oars in despair for the lack of the stimulus of even a friendly word of heartening in a crisis4 ,the old song of dreary philosophy says3 ,the mill will never grind again with the water that is past4 ,why should the mill expect to use the same water over and over8 ,that water may now be merrily turning mill-wheels further down the valley1 continuing without ceasing1 its good work4 ,it is folly to think so much of the water that is past4 ,think more of the great stream that is ever flowing on4 ,use that as best you can1 and when it has passed you will be glad that it came1 and be satisfied with its service4 ,time is a mighty stream that comes each day with unending flow4 ,to think of this water of past time with such regret that it shuts our eyes to the mighty river of the present is sheer folly4 ,let us make the best we can of to-day in the best preparation for to-morrow2 then even the things that come too late will be new revelations of wisdom to use in the present now before us1 and in the future we are forming4 ,the ,way of the ,reformer ,the ,way of the ,reformer ,the reformers of the world are its men of mighty purpose4 ,they are men with the courage of individual conviction1 men who dare run counter to the criticism of inferiors1 men who voluntarily bear crosses for what they accept as right1 even without the guarantee of a crown4 ,they are men who gladly go down into the depths of silence1 darkness and oblivion1 but only to emerge finally like divers1 with pearls in their hands4 ,he who labors untiringly toward the attainment of some noble aim1 with eyes fixed on the star of some mighty purpose1 as the ,magi followed the star in the ,east1 is a reformer4 ,he who is loyal to the inspiration of some great religious thought1 and with strong hand leads weak trembling steps of faith into the glory of certainty1 is a reformer4 ,he who follows the thin thread of some revelation of ,nature in any of the sciences1 follows it in the spirit of truth through a maze of doubt1 hope1 experiment and questioning1 till the tiny guiding thread grows stronger and firmer to his touch1 leading him to some wondrous illumination of ,nature's law1 is a reformer4 ,he who goes up alone into the mountains of truth and1 glowing with the radiance of some mighty revelation1 returns to force the hurrying world to listen to his story is a reformer4 ,whoever seeks to work out for himself his destiny1 the life-work that all his nature tells him should be his1 bravely1 calmly and with due consideration of the rights of others and his duties to them1 is a reformer4 ,these men who renounce the commonplace and conventional for higher things are reformers because they are striving to bring about new conditions2 they are consecrating their lives to ideals4 ,they are the brave aggressive vanguard of progress4 ,they are men who can stand a siege1 who can take long forced marches without a murmur1 who set their teeth and bow their heads as they fight their way through the smoke1 who smile at the trials and privations that dare to daunt them4 ,they care naught for the hardships and perils of the fight1 for they are ever inspired by the flag of triumph that seems already waving on the citadel of their hopes4 ,if we are facing some great life ambition let us see if our heroic plans are good1 high1 noble and exalted enough for the price we must pay for their attainment4 ,let us seriously and honestly look into our needs1 our abilities1 our resources1 our responsibilities1 to assure ourselves that it is no mere passing whim that is leading us4 ,let us hear and consider all counsel1 all light that may be thrown on every side1 let us hear it as a judge on the bench listens to the evidence and then makes his own decision4 ,the choice of a life-work is too sacred a responsibility to the individual to be lightly decided for him by others less thoroughly informed than himself4 ,when we have weighed in the balance the mighty question and have made our decision1 let us act1 let us concentrate our lives upon that which we feel is supreme1 and1 never forsaking a real duty1 never be diverted from the attainment of the highest things1 no matter what honest price we may have to pay for their realization and conquest4 ,when ,nature decides on any man as a reformer she whispers to him his great message1 she places in his hand the staff of courage1 she wraps around him the robes of patience and self-reliance and starts him on his way4 ,then1 in order that he may have strength to live through it all1 she mercifully calls him back for a moment and makes him--an optimist4 ,the way of the reformer is hard1 very hard4 ,the world knows little of it1 for it is rare that the reformer reveals the scars of conflict1 the pangs of hope deferred1 the mighty waves of despair that wash over a great purpose4 ,sometimes men of sincere aim and unselfish high ambition1 weary and worn with the struggle1 have permitted the world to hear an uncontrolled sob of hopelessness or a word of momentary bitterness at the seeming emptiness of all effort4 ,but men of great purpose and noble ideals must know that the path of the reformer is loneliness4 ,they must live from within rather than in dependence on sources of help from without4 ,their mission1 their exalted aim1 their supreme object in living1 which focuses all their energy1 must be their source of strength and inspiration4 ,the reformer must ever light the torch of his own inspiration4 ,his own hand must ever guard the sacred flame as he moves steadily forward on his lonely way4 ,the reformer in morals1 in education1 in religion1 in sociology1 in invention1 in philosophy1 in any line of aspiration1 is ever a pioneer4 ,his privilege is to blaze the path for others1 to mark at his peril a road that others may follow in safety4 ,he must not expect that the way will be graded and asphalted for him4 ,he must realize that he must face injustice1 ingratitude1 opposition1 misunderstanding1 the cruel criticism of contemporaries and often1 hardest of all1 the wondering reproach of those who love him best4 ,he must not expect the tortoise to sympathize with the flight of the eagle4 ,a great purpose is ever an isolation4 ,should a soldier leading the forlorn hope complain that the army is not abreast of him8 ,the glorious opportunity before him should so inspire him1 so absorb him1 that he will care naught for the army except to know that if he lead as he should1 and do that which the crisis demands1 the army must follow4 ,the reformer must realize without a trace of bitterness that the busy world cares little for his struggles1 it cares only to joy in his final triumph2 it will share his feasts but not his fasts4 ,christ was alone in ,gethsemane1 but--at the sermon in the wilderness1 where food was provided1 the attendance was four thousand4 ,the world is honest enough in its attitude4 ,it takes time for the world to realize1 to accept1 and to assimilate a large truth4 ,since the dawn of history1 the great conservative spirit of every age1 that ballast that keeps the world in poise1 makes the slow acceptance of great truths an essential for its safety4 ,it wisely requires proof1 clear1 absolute1 undeniable attestation1 before it fully accepts4 ,sometimes the perfect enlightenment takes years1 sometimes generations4 ,it is but the safeguard of truth4 ,time is the supreme test1 the final court of appeals that winnows out the chaff of false claims1 pretended revelation1 empty boast1 and idle dreams4 ,time is the touchstone that finally reveals all true gold4 ,the process is slow1 necessarily so1 and the fate of the world's geniuses and reformers in the balance of their contemporary criticism1 should have a sweetness of consolation rather than the bitterness of cynicism4 ,if the greatest leaders of the world have had to wait for recognition1 should we1 whose best work may be but trifling in comparison with theirs1 expect instant sympathy1 appreciation1 and coperation1 where we are merely growing toward our own attainment8 ,the world ever says to its leaders1 by its attitude if not in words1 ,if you would lead us to higher realms of thought1 to purer ideals of life1 and flash before us1 like the handwriting on the wall1 all the possible glories of development1 you must pay the price for it1 not we4 ,the world has a law as clearly defined as the laws of ,kepler3 ,contemporary credit for reform works in any line will be in inverse proportion to the square root of their importance4 ,give us a new fad and we will prostrate ourselves in the dust2 give us a new philosophy1 a marvelous revelation1 a higher conception of life and morality1 and we may pass you by1 but posterity will pay for it4 ,send your messages ,c4,o4,d4 and posterity will settle for them4 ,you ask for bread2 posterity will give you a stone1 called a monument4 ,there is nothing in this to discourage the highest efforts of genius4 ,genius is great because it is decades in advance of its generation4 ,to appreciate genius requires comprehension and the same characteristics4 ,the public can fully appreciate only what is a few steps in advance2 it must grow to the appreciation of great thought4 ,the genius or the reformer should accept this as a necessary condition4 ,it is the price he must pay for being in advance of his generation1 just as front seats in the orchestra cost more than those in the back row of the third gallery4 ,the world is impartial in its methods4 ,it says ever1 you may suffer now1 but we will give you later fame4 ,posthumous fame means that the individual may shiver with cold1 but his grandchildren will get fur-lined ulsters2 the individual plants acorns1 his posterity sells the oaks4 ,posthumous fame or recognition is a check made out to the individual1 but payable only to his heirs4 ,there is nothing the world cries out for so constantly as a new idea2 there is nothing the world fears so much4 ,the milestones of progress in the history of the ages tell the story4 ,galileo was cast into prison in his seventieth year and his works were prohibited4 ,he had committed no crime1 but he was in advance of his generation4 ,harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood was not accepted by the universities of the world till twenty-five years after its publication4 ,frbel1 the gentle inspired lover of children1 suffered the trials and struggles of the reformer1 and his system of teaching was abolished in ,prussia because it was calculated to bring up our young people in atheism4 ,so it was with thousands of others4 ,the world says with a large airy sweep of the hand1 the opposition to progress is all in the past1 the great reformer or the great genius is recognized to-day4 ,no1 in the past they tried to kill a great truth by opposition2 now we gently seek to smother it by making it a fad4 ,so it is written in the book of human nature3 ,the saviours of the world must ever be martyrs4 ,the death of ,christ on the cross for the people he had come to save1 typifies the temporary crucifixion of public opinion that comes to all who bring to the people the message of some great truth1 some clearer revelation of the divine4 ,truth1 right1 and justice must triumph4 ,let us never close the books of a great work and say it has failed4 ,no matter how slight seem results1 how dark the outlook1 the glorious consummation of the past1 the revelation of the future1 must come4 ,and ,christ lived thirty years and he had twelve disciples1 one denied him1 one doubted him1 one betrayed him1 and the other nine were very human4 ,and in the supreme crisis of ,his life they all forsook him and fled1 but to-day--,his followers are millions4 ,sweet indeed is human sympathy1 the warm hand-clasp of confidence and love brings a rich inflow of new strength to him who is struggling1 and the knowledge that someone dear to us sees with love and comradeship our future through our eyes1 is a wondrous draught of new life4 ,if we have this1 perhaps the loyalty of two or three1 what the world says or thinks about us should count for little4 ,but if this be denied us1 then must we bravely walk our weary way alone1 toward the sunrise that must come4 ,the little world around us that does not understand us1 does not appreciate our ambition or sympathize with our efforts1 that seem to it futile1 is not intentionally cruel1 calloused1 bitter1 blind1 or heartless4 ,it is merely that busied with its own pursuits1 problems and pleasures1 it does not fully realize1 does not see as we do4 ,the world does not see our ideal as we see it1 does not feel the glow of inspiration that makes our blood tingle1 our eye brighten1 and our soul seem flooded with a wondrous light4 ,it sees naught but the rough block of marble before us and the great mass of chips and fragments of seemingly fruitless effort at our feet1 but it does not see the angel of achievement slowly emerging from its stone prison1 from nothingness into being1 under the tireless strokes of our chisel4 ,it hears no faint rustle of wings that seem already real to us nor the glory of the music of triumph already ringing in our ears4 ,there come dark1 dreary days in all great work1 when effort seems useless1 when hope almost appears a delusion1 and confidence the mirage of folly4 ,sometimes for days your sails flap idly against the mast1 with not a breath of wind to move you on your way1 and with a paralyzing sense of helplessness you just have to sit and wait and wait4 ,sometimes your craft of hope is carried back by a tide that seems to undo in moments your work of months4 ,but it may not be really so1 you maybe put into a new channel that brings you nearer your haven than you dared to hope4 ,this is the hour that tests us1 that determines whether we are masters or slaves of conditions4 ,as in battle of ,marengo1 it is the fight that is made when all seems lost that really counts and wrests victory from the hand of seeming defeat4 ,if you are seeking to accomplish any great serious purpose that your mind and your heart tell you is right1 you must have the spirit of the reformer4 ,you must have the courage to face trial1 sorrow and disappointment1 to meet them squarely and to move forward unscathed and undaunted4 ,in the sublimity of your perfect faith in the outcome1 you can make them as powerless to harm you1 as a dewdrop falling on the ,pyramids4 ,truth1 with time as its ally1 always wins in the end4 ,the knowledge of the inappreciation1 the coldness1 and the indifference of the world1 should never make you pessimistic4 ,they should inspire you with that large1 broad optimism that sees that all the opposition of the world can never keep back the triumph of truth1 that your work is so great that the petty jealousies1 misrepresentations1 and hardships caused by those around you1 dwindle into nothingness4 ,what cares the messenger of the king for his trials and sufferings if he knows that he has delivered his message8 ,large movements1 great plans1 always take time for development4 ,if you want great things1 pay the price like a man4 ,any one can plant radishes2 it takes courage to plant acorns and to wait for the oaks4 ,learn to look not merely at the clouds1 but through them to the sun shining behind them4 ,when things look darkest1 grasp your weapon firmer and fight harder4 ,there is always more progress than you can perceive1 and it is really only the outcome of the battle that counts4 ,and when it is all over and the victory is yours1 and the smoke clears away and the smell of the powder is dissipated1 and you bury the friendships that died because they could not stand the strain1 and you nurse back the wounded and flint-hearted who loyally stood by you1 even when doubting1 then the hard years of fighting will seem but a dream4 ,you will stand brave1 heartened1 strengthened by the struggle1 re-created to a new1 better and stronger life by a noble battle1 nobly waged1 in a noble cause4 ,and the price will then seem to you--nothing4 ,transcriber's ,note ,obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected4 ,variations in hyphenation have been standardised but all other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged4