Part 15

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

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

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

The Sword that Keeps the Past (1916)

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

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

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

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

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

The Fountain of Youth (1917)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some Principles of Efficiency (1917)

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

_The Personal Attitude for Right Living._

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

_Your Personal Resources._

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

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

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

_The Method of Efficiency._

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Story of the Red Cross (1917)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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