Part 16

Yet it is distinctively a civil organization. Its membership is made up of the common people of the country. It accepts volunteers for medical, surgical, and nursing work behind the battle lines in time of war, but it also accepts as members all who care to enrol and pay the small annual membership fee.

The average citizen is thus afforded an opportunity to have a part in the better side of war—the care of the sick, the wounded, and the distressed. It enables the last person, however far away and however lowly he may be, to do his share together with the rest.

Even those who volunteer as doctors and nurses find that most of their work is at a distance from the firing line. Strict observance must be given to certain fixed rules governing the activities of Red Cross workers, but so long as these rules are observed the danger is comparatively small.

The American Red Cross has, since its organization in 1884, proven its worth in a number of times of need. Its opportunity for wartime service has, thus far, been limited. Until we had been touched by the present war, our people had only been engaged in one brief struggle since the organization of the Red Cross in America. It did its work well during the Spanish-American War of 1898. It will now have an opportunity for much greater wartime usefulness in a time of much greater need.

It has, however, been giving frequent service to the suffering in other times of catastrophe. It gave notable aid in the time of the yellow fever epidemic in the South, the Johnstown flood, the famines in Russia and Japan, tidal-wave floods in South Carolina and Texas, the Armenian massacre, the oppression of the Cuban people, the Mount Pelee volcanic eruption, and earthquakes in Chile, Jamaica, and California.

These are but a few of the outstanding instances of Red Cross aid to stricken people. In smaller disasters almost everywhere, the same helping hand has been extended. The American Red Cross has expended about fifteen millions upon its work thus far in its history. That sum will, of course, be rapidly multiplied if the present war continues long. The whole country has been roused to a spirit of co-operation, contributing both work and money.

It seems a particularly hopeful thing that, although war has not yet been recognized as a mere relic of the barbarous past, in the midst of its bloodshed there are to be heard the hurrying feet of messengers of mercy and help. One of the strongest forces now making for a day of lasting peace is the beautiful suggestion that comes from the spirit of those who make it their aim to help while others destroy. The spirit of positive service will endure long after the work of destruction has been forsaken. Those who assist in such a task will suffer no regrets.

The work of M. Dunant has been significant in the cause of peace. The Nobel prize went to him in 1901 for distinguished services in behalf of international arbitration and conciliation. The day will yet come when the world will see the realization of his great dream of an age of brotherly kindness.

Words (1917)

Words determine the trend of human events. They make sad or glad the years we live. Like flowers or tares sown along the highway of life, they make every landscape a little brighter or a little less lovely.

The tongue is equally capable of being the messenger of angels or of spirits of evil. It can sting like an adder. A thrust of the dagger or the sharp sting of a bullet, and all is over; but the sting of a hard word abides through the years. It warps, withers, and embitters everything it touches. The human heart shrivels under it like the drooping of a tender plant beneath the direct rays of the burning sun.

But a word in due season, how good is it! It helps the weary to take courage again. It helps the broken life to make another effort. It revives drooping hopes and purposes. It counts for more than could a gift of gold or a bestowal of power.

A dozen years ago a school boy was standing, tired and discouraged, in the shadow of a dark stairway on the public square of the town. He was away from home, and he was almost down to his last cent. He was not sure whether his hard efforts were worth the while. He heard an approaching step. It was one of his teachers. He drew farther back, not expecting the teacher to see him, but the teacher did. He stopped and said a good word for something the young fellow had done. That was all it took to put fresh courage into a weary heart. Today that boy, now become a man, is still toiling on, trying to do something worth the doing. He is still at it for the sake of a simple sentence or two—in due season.

The value of a word is so great that the name best befits the nature of the Master. In the first chapter of the Gospel according to John, we find that Jesus is repeatedly referred to as the Word of God. He is, indeed, an expression of that which men had so long thought to be inexpressible. A Word, made flesh, He came and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory.

Words slip back the shutters from the windows of the inner life. It is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth is sure to speak. The tongue is daily engaged in drawing an open picture of the heart. The very vocabulary of a person will tell you the story of what goes on in the silence of his thoughts.

The power of uplifting speech and the right to enjoy helpful conversation are high privileges. When a group of people are together, a splendid opportunity is afforded for conversation which is not only self-improving but also mutually helpful. It is worse than a tragedy when that never-recurring time is spent in conversation concerning what is foolish and evil. Is it not a standing wonder that, when there are so many worthy themes, anyone should be willing to allow his conversation to keep the slimy level of the soil?

Words should pay respect to the dignity and beauty of language. Language has a majesty peculiarly its own, and its sanctity ought never to be violated. It is violated, frequently, in two especial ways.

The first is by the way of slang. Those who allow themselves to grow accustomed to slangy expressions do themselves and their language alike a great injustice. They do themselves an injustice because speech so surely marks the man, and the world will always take it as an indicator of character. They do their language an injustice because every deviation from its defined paths tends to break down its dignity and power.

Of course, slang is not a cardinal sin, but it is like a good many other things that are not cardinal sins in that the tendency is a bad one. The cardinal sins are less dangerous because we are more afraid of them.

The second is by the way of extravagant and untrue utterance. Enough people have gone “simply crazy” about things to fill all the insane asylums to overflowing, and it is a marvel how the cemeteries continue to provide room for all the people who have been tickled or scared “to death” or who have encountered so many things that were “simply killing.” The users of these terms are people who have not stopped to contemplate the fact that simple English is always sufficient for the telling of the whole truth.

Words are certain to react upon the speaker. The effect upon others of a word let fly is equalled only by its effect upon the person who says it. In other words, speech possesses boomerang qualities.

Just after William Henry Harrison had been nominated for the presidency in 1840, a Baltimore newspaper contemptuously called attention to his humble habitat by referring to him as “Log Cabin Harrison.” Instead of arousing prejudice against him, as the utterance was meant to do, it only stirred up a great popular enthusiasm in his behalf. The public took up the cry as a slogan; the log cabin became the campaign symbol; and William Henry Harrison was elected.

When John Wesley and a number of his fellow students who felt a desire for a deeper religious life formed a “Holy Club” at Oxford University, they became so methodical in their habits and work that other students of the university dubbed them “Methodists.” The name not only did not militate against them but John Wesley remained a Methodist, and tens of thousands have been proud to bear the name that was first bestowed as an epithet of disgrace.

If there was anything derisive in the voice of Pilate when he exclaimed “Behold the man,” his derision has been increasingly mocked by the voice of history. All the years have been obeying the command of the Roman governor. They have been beholding not only Jesus but Pilate also, to the increasing fame and power of the one and the growing shame of the other.

If there was any taint of sarcasm in the words Pilate ordered placed at the head of the Cross, the years have turned it into living truth. The words have risen up to mock their maker.

Slander is more than half the time the offspring of jealousy and envy. The reason for a great deal of unjust and unkind comment is to be found in the proneness of man to condemn his brother most fiercely for that fault which lies most deeply imbedded in his own life. Adverse criticism is never a proper topic of conversation. The chances are so great against the justice and truth of a harsh judgment that it should never have a place in human speech.

One reason for this is the fact that one never knows the inner story of his neighbor’s life. It is easy to fail to take into account the secret effort, the unknown struggle, the unheralded difficulty. Others have battles to fight and obstacles with which to contend of which we will never know. It may be, furthermore, that in their situation we would not do so well as they.

Another reason is the fact that we are not commissioned a race of judges and set to determine the guilt and weigh the faults of mankind. Even if it were our business to be judges, we should be poor ones indeed if we failed to give the accused the benefit of the doubt. There is plenty of time to speak when one can speak from indisputable facts.

There is an unwritten law which forbids speaking against the dead. It may be wrong to speak against those who can no longer lift their voices in their own defense, but it may also be remembered that, though the dead cannot defend themselves, neither do they need to do so. They can no longer be harmed by the shaft of malice, and will slumber as sweetly under the poison breath of the fault-finder as beneath the perfumed words of affection and appreciation. With the living it is different. They still care what men think of and say about them. They can feel the stir of joy and the sting of pain. They respond to kindness and recoil from the bitter and unjust word. If a word is to be spoken against anybody, it is far better that it be against the dead and that the living be spared the destruction of their all.

One of the best services to render to the world is to breathe a helpful word upon it. It will be like a shower of cooling moisture on a field grown dry and dead. In it you send forth a messenger imperishable. It will echo where you little know, and it will speak for you when your lips of clay can speak no more.

The Line of Necessity (1918)

When a given course of action is considered or a particular step of progress is proposed, many people are in the habit of questioning whether the thing is necessary. They do not inquire whether it is desirable, whether it is helpful, or whether it is lovely. The only question raised is as to its necessity.

The propounding of this question is not without its effect. The people who ask it often rob a movement of its power and occasionally cause it to fail completely. By its use a chill is often brought upon spirits which would otherwise throb with warmth. The world is deprived of the influence of many a cheerful song, helpful smile, gracious act, and kind word simply because the person who might have given them stopped to make this ever-recurring inquiry: “Is it necessary?”

The people who ask the question would themselves be the least willing to have their own lives and fortunes subjected to its merciless test. They know full well that it would remove from their little worlds many of the things which now seem best and sweetest. Landscapes would lose the mystic charm which now serves to lift them above the commonplace. Daily experience would be robbed of the glamor which now makes life seem so sweet and beautiful. The glory would fade from about the brow of friendship, and even friendship itself perhaps would perish. Lovely as all these things are, they do not belong to the list of things that are absolutely necessary. They would pass away if life were denuded of all that the world could manage to get along without.

As a matter of fact, many of the most blessed things we know lie on the farther side of the line of necessity. If we were never to pass beyond that line, then the world and all that it contains would be reduced to the impoverished outlines of the barest actuality. There would be no place left for hope, ambition, and dream. We should do no more work than is necessary, and our labor could no longer be a daily progress toward the summit of some mount of hope. We should have no more than is necessary, and each would become less than a peasant. We should love, help, and serve no more than is necessary, and all the joy of the unselfish and the sacrificial would be taken from life. We should have no more friends than is necessary, and one by one those who have been our greatest inspiration would depart from our ken. How poor a thing it would soon be to live!

Life would indeed be soon reduced to the level of mere existence. We should still be in the world, but the glow and the loveliness would have departed. Our tables would be bare, because we should eat only what is strictly necessary. Our clothing would be scant and poor, for we should wear only what one must. Our lives would be solitary, for association is a luxury and not a necessity. Kindness is unnecessary, therefore our souls would shrivel and perish. A once cheerful world would have grown dull and dead, and the once joyful privilege of living would have suddenly been transformed into a grievous necessity.

It is the unnecessary that changes bare existence into throbbing and purposeful life. A mere earth is changed into a lovely world by processes which might have been dispensed with. A house is transformed into a home by graces which are not the children of necessity.

Even Bethlehem and Calvary were not necessary. The glory of their meaning comes rather from the fact that they sprang from good will alone. The power of the Cross springs largely from the fact that it could have been avoided. We appreciate it because the Master faced it willingly.

No one cares for the friend who is a friend under the pressure of some necessity. We appreciate the friendship of those who are our friends because they simply want to be. We do not care for the gift offered by some one who felt the force of some compulsion. The impulse is to cast it from us in disdain. We love the gift made by the impulse of a kindly heart, not because it was a necessity but because it was a pleasure.

I once sat in a great gathering and heard a man with silver hair offer a bit of advice which sprang from a life of rich experience. “Let us,” he said, “during the week that we are together, make it a point to be a little kinder to one another than is necessary.”

Life had taught him that the finer graces and the sweeter instincts are not necessary things. They do not earn salary. They do not satisfy the hunger of the body. They are even sometimes discounted in the calculations of the shortsighted. They are, however, the beautiful things. They garland life and make it lovely. If the men in that gathering were to be kind to one another, it was desirable that they should be so for the sake of kindness, and not for that of compulsion.

This was one of the first principles to engage the attention of the Great Teacher. He said to a crowd of people one day that one gets no credit either on the books of heaven or in the courts of his own conscience until he has done a little better than was strictly necessary. It is a little thing to give the coat that is asked for, but it is a worthy thing to give the cloak which is not expected. It is insignificant to travel the mile that is requested, but it is worth while to go the second mile unasked. One deserves no thanks for having loved his friend, for that is easy, but he who learns to love his enemies has achieved something really worth while.

These points from the Sermon on the Mount simply state the old principle of the beauty and value of the unnecessary. It is the second mile traveled, the overflowing kindness offered, and the unnecessary act of goodness that sweeten and glorify the years. These things make of life more than a gloomy journey through a valley of trouble. They make it a glad procession across the hills of joy.

There is a higher law than that of necessity. Necessity may supply a skeleton for living, but we are not interested in skeletons until they are clothed with flesh and vitalized with life. It represents a framework for existence, but the framework of a building does not seem worth while until it has added to it the complement of walls and the beauty of decorations. It may represent the stage upon which the drama of life is to be enacted, but the stage is empty and bare until the actors come upon it and lend it the enchantment of thought and action. Beyond the line of necessity lie the countless things which weave the web of splendor and throw the magic of enchantment about things. Necessity supplies the substance. The unnecessary adds the glory.

The proper question to ask about a course of conduct to be followed or a thing to be obtained is not, then, that as to whether it is necessary. It is that as to whether it is lovely and worth while. We need to remember that if all the unnecessary acts were left undone and all the unnecessary words were left unsaid, the world soon would cease to seem a fit place in which to live. We need to remember that it is the will uncompelled that tames the wilderness, that it is the hand unconstrained that reclaims the desert, and that it is the kindness born of spontaneous impulse which brings into life the uplifting and the helpful.

Of course we could get on without all these things. We do not have to have the flowers; we could dispense with the moonbeams; our three meals a day do not depend upon the singing of the birds; the world could no doubt continue on its way if the wind never again whispered a lullaby among the trees. But this is not the kind of world for which the heart longs. The deeper hunger is satisfied only with a world made beautiful with the things that were whispered only into the more sacred chambers of the heart of man—the beautiful and the unnecessary things.

Some New Facts About Alcohol (1918)

After all, it may not have been so bad a thing that many defenders rose up during the past years to champion the failing cause of alcohol. The debate which has resulted from their mistaken contentions has really led to a determination on the part of people in general to look into the question and to determine for themselves whether alcohol is really a benefit or a menace to the user.

No believer in abstinence needs to ask for anything better than just such a spirit of scientific investigation. The best thing that can happen to the truth is that it be investigated. Such investigation into the drink question has been the result of the general questioning, and it has led to the general conclusion that alcohol works harm and not good to the human system.

One of the most useful of American scientific establishments is the Carnegie Institution at Washington. During the last few years, two of its experts, Drs. Dodge and Benedict, have been following special lines of study on the effect of alcohol upon the human brain and nervous system. Their achievements in this field of investigation have been notable for both their scientific and their moral value.

These investigations were, of course, conducted with that care which always characterizes the work of the genuine scientist. The laboratory expert never works from a prejudiced viewpoint. He approaches his task with an open mind. He does not seek the proof of some contention of his own. He looks for nothing more nor less than the truth about a thing. He would rather fail altogether in an investigation than to reach a false conclusion and publish it to the world. Such a result would not only be failure but deception as well. When one is following the results of the work of a true scientist, he may rely upon it that no unfair advantage will be taken of the facts.

Of course, it must be remembered that much still remains to be discovered concerning alcohol. Those who have studied the subject thus far have only been pioneers in their field. We shall learn a great deal more about it, but we have already learned enough to indicate the fact that alcohol is an enemy of men.

One of the conclusions reached is that alcohol is not, as has so long been supposed, a stimulant. It is, instead, really a depressant. The seeming increase of vitality which follows its use is entirely deceptive. According to fundamental tests, it really robs the body of a measure of vitality.

We have long been accustomed to suppose the case otherwise. Even the most ardent opponent of liquor has taken for granted its power to stimulate. Working upon the basis of this assumption, the medical profession has too long taken it for granted that, being a stimulant, alcohol had a proper and rightful place in the dispensing of drugs and the practice of medicine.

Of course, the use of alcohol is always followed by a certain increase of seeming vivacity. The user becomes more talkative, and, up to a certain stage, even more active. Whence do these manifestations come, and what is their cause, if alcohol depresses rather than stimulates?