Give them the spices of a cheerful conversation. No good comes from burning the mind of the world with the acid of criticism, or distressing their lacerated hearts with the story of our personal discomforts. Give spices. Instead of telling how the rheumatism made the joints creak on their hinges, tell the story of how once you were able to leap over the fences and how you swung from the topmost branch of the old apple tree. Instead of telling about the horrors of insomnia, and how little you slept that past week, and how miserably the morning hours wore away, tell about the red bird that sang under your window and awakened a thousand memories of your childhood, tell how you noticed the fresh air of the morning awakened symphonies among the dew-laden leaves. It is so much nicer to be a candle that gives light than a smoky chimney that belches soot and cinders. The world always appreciates its bearers of good news. Happy conversation is within the reach of every one. No matter how blind we may be to the blessings of to-day, memory holds a box of spices within easy reach, and we can fill our words with a sweetness that will cast an undying fragrance.
It is not difficult to be cheerful when we remember that we meet only two classes of people, no matter how far we travel, or how long we live. The one class consists of those who are making failure of life. Each word we speak brings to them either the bitterness of wormwood or the good cheer of wild honey. The opportunity to give encouragement to the downcast comes every day. Tired, worn, and jaded, they meet us upon every street corner and press against us at every assembly. O that they might rejoice as they taste the spices we are placing in their wine! The other class of people whom we are meeting are those who are making success of life, and who are very often the most neglected. Because they receive worldly honor we think them extremely happy, not recognizing their loneliness. The world never hesitates to press its sponge of vinegar and gall to the lips of those who are serving it.
Several years ago there was a large gathering in Calvary Church, New York City, to pay tribute to Dr. Edward Washburn. Phillips Brooks, Bishop Potter, and many other men of distinction met in that magnificent service and offered words of praise to the goodness, courage, clear thinking, untainted love and unselfish devotion of that mighty man. After all had ended their words of praise a little woman, dressed in black, who had been the companion of Dr. Washburn for so many years of married life, slowly arose to address the audience. Amid an intense silence she repeated over and over again these words: “O, if you men loved Edward so, why did you never tell him?” What a revelation of heart-hunger! Long years of bitterness when all might have been relieved with just a little spice, that is readily found and easily bestowed.
Bring on the spices! Let us be more affectionate one toward another. The eldest son of a large family was kneeling at his mother’s deathbed saying, “You have been such a good mother.” The dying woman opened her eyes and faintly whispered, “You never said so before, John, you never said that before.” Let this be our motto as we meet all men: “I would cause you to drink spiced wine.”
XII.
The Fever of Health
One of man’s richest possessions is the feeling of restlessness and discontent that ever pushes onward seeking something new. It is the secret of discovery. Beholding the sunset, like a thousand camp fires flashing their beams upon the crimson and purple curtained tents of ever-encamping angels, man determined to enter into and share their quiet place of rest and luxury. Hastening forward, he easily found the hills that yester-night formed the mystic camping ground, but nowhere would a torn leaf or trampled grass-blade betray a single footprint; while, looking farther westward than he had traveled, he saw the same crimson-and-purple tents stretched upon other hilltops bathed with sunset’s golden light. Month followed month while man continued journeying westward in fruitless quest for peace, but in his effort to reach the cherished goal he discovered new lakes and rivers, hills and valleys, plains and forests, until a mighty continent lay ready for his children’s children to build cities rivaling in power and splendor the mystic camps of sunset’s unseen hosts.
Restlessness and dissatisfaction are the secret of invention. Satisfied with their condition, China, India, and Africa yield no inventions. Their people carry water in flasks of skin, travel upon weary-footed beasts of burden, and bequeath their children nothing but tradition. Such once was all the world until some individuals of courage and determination caught the fever of health. Dissatisfied and restless, man became weary of carrying water and would not rest until he had perfected the Holly Engine that presses a cup of cool water to every thirsty lip within the city. Tired of slow travel, he compelled the locomotive to give fleetness to his feet, and the telephone to give rapid transit to his voice. Restless because the singer’s voice must fade in silence, man built the phonograph to give the human voice, the frailest of all man’s possessions, everlasting life. Dissatisfaction with things as they are gives invention her rich achievements.
Art follows only in the footsteps of restlessness. Every painting and tapestry hanging on palace wall, every anthem that thrills the templed throngs, and every melody that wafts its sweet cadence upon the trembling, vibrant air, exists because some sensitive soul refused to know contentment until he had given perfect expression to the beauty that dwelt within his soul.
Only through the contagion of the divine fever can there be any reform. It was only when the restless soul of John Howard began to express its contempt for the foul floors and vitiated air of England’s jails and aroused the slumbering conscience of an indifferent people that the cruel prison systems of the world were changed. Reform in England’s colonial policy that made possible the unity of Canada and the founding of our own government came only when men began to chafe and grow restless under unjust treatment, and finally found expression in the burning, blazing, nervous eloquence of Patrick Henry, “Give me liberty, or give me death!”