Reason should not be behind instinct in making the most of life. While man is less rigidly conditioned and may modify his environment, he, too, may nourish his life by using to the full whatever nutriment is offered. Lincoln has been characterized as a man who made the most of his life. Perhaps his greatness consisted mostly in that.
We are inclined to blame conditions and circumstances for failures that result from our lack of effort. We lack in persistence, we resent disparity in the distribution of talents, we blink at responsibility, and are slothful and trifling. Our life is a failure from lack of will.
Who are we that we should complain that life is hard, or conclude that it is not better so? Why do we covet other opportunities instead of doing the best with those we have? What is the glory of life but to accept it with such satisfaction as we can command, to enjoy what we have a right to, and to use all it offers for its upbuilding and fulfillment?
BEING RIGHT
How evident it is that much more than good intentions is needed in one who would either maintain self-respect or be of any use in his daily life! It is not easy to be good, but it is often less easy to be right. It involves an understanding that presupposes both ability and effort. Intelligence, thinking, often studious consideration, are necessary to give a working hypothesis of what is best. It is seldom that anything is so simple that without careful thought we can be sure that one course is right and another wrong. Perhaps, after we have weighed all that is ponderable, we can only determine which seems the better course of action. Being good may help our judgment. Doing right is the will of God.
PATRIOTISM
"Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it." Abraham Lincoln had a marvelous aptitude for condensed statement, and in this compact sentence from his Cooper Union address expresses the very essence of the appeal that is made to us today. We can find no more fundamental slogan and no nobler one.
Whatever the circumstances presented and whatever the immediate result will be, we are to dare to do our duty as we understand it. And we are so to dare and so to do in complete faith that right makes might and in utter disregard of fear that might may triumph. The only basis of true courage is faith, and our trust must be in right, in good, in God.
We live in a republic that sustains itself through the acceptance by all of the will of the majority, and to talk of despotism whenever the authority necessary for efficiency is exercised, and that with practically unanimous concurrence, is wholly unreasonable. A man who cannot yield allegiance to the country in which he lives should either be silent and inactive or go to some country where his sympathy corresponds with his loyalty.