Unfinished Rainbows, and Other Essays

by George Wood Anderson

Man was not made for the sea, but the sea was made for man. Man was created with the gift of complete dominion over all the world in which he finds himself. Standing like a discoverer upon the shores of his own unoared sea of life, it is his to conquer, for each individual faces a sea newly created, whose waves have never been cut by the prow of any boat. No two people sail the same sea. Each person faces a life as original as it is unknown, but one that is singularly suited to himself. Age may be enriched with much dearly bought and valuable experiences, and be most helpful in counseling youth, but age can never fully understand the child, or youth, who stands upon the sun-kissed sands of the unoared sea of his own individual life. The beauty and pathos of life is that each one must solve the problem for himself.

This does not mean that the training and counseling of youth should be neglected. The ennobling influences of a godly home with Christian parents; the steady, guiding hand of school and college; the inspiration of good books and imperial thinking, as well as the soul-strengthening forces of the church, are all of most vital importance. They should never be omitted from any life. These are things to which each child has an unquestioned right. All the forces for good, of earth and sea and sky, must be centered upon the ambitious but ofttimes thoughtless youth, that he may recognize and faithfully employ the agencies created for his service and success.

The best that education can do is to help the individual to help himself. Education is not a compass by which to steer his craft; it is not the rudder that determines the course; neither is it the propelling power that drives it through the waves against an adverse wind. God has made especial provision for these equipments. The chart is the inspired Word; the compass, a divinely guided conscience; the rudder, a will surrendered fully to the will of God; while the power that propels lies in the skillful using of two plain oars that God has placed within his easy reach. Education is the intellectual training that enables him to use these agencies in the most efficient manner.

Many centuries of experience and experiment have produced no labor-saving machinery for reaching the harbor of success. If one would make successful voyage, he must be willing to grasp the oars with his own hands, bend his back to heavy strain, employing all his mental, physical, and spiritual power to the task of making good. It is not a joy ride or a pleasure trip. There is a joy unspeakable in the task, but it comes not from without but from the consciousness within that one is winning in a moral strife. This consciousness will be found to be the chiefest of life’s joys. None shall excel it this side the welcome we shall receive when safely anchored in the presence of our God, and even then this consciousness will be the inspiration of the heavenly song. Life must be considered not so much a pleasure as a struggle, but a worthy struggle, that sends the blood tingling through the veins, and builds the tissues of a noble character.

After the training in life’s fundamentals the choosing of the oars is the most important thing. The craft in which one sails is character, built to weather any storm on any wind-swept sea. The haven is God’s homeland of the soul. The oars are varied, and the success or failure of the voyage, the safety or shipwreck of character, a victorious landing or sinking beneath the waves of obscurity, depend entirely upon the choosing of these oars by means of which his life energies are to be directed.

To this end all the educational influences of home and school and college must be directed. Youth must be taught the value of an intelligent choice of the instruments through which his powers shall flow. He must not be led by fancy or prejudice or by the words of dishonest men who have oars to sell. He must not choose by the color of the paint or beauty of their decorations. He must not listen to the honeyed words of an evil one whose sole purpose is his destruction. Leaving the sands of childhood and starting voyage upon the unoared sea of life is a moment in which all earth and heaven are concerned, and therefore the choice of oar must not be left to chance or fortune. He must know that all the proffered oars are not alike, and that false teachers profit from the wreckage of the boats they set adrift. He must know that a broken oar means a drifting boat, and that no drifting boat can ride a storm-tossed sea. All the difference between heaven and hell is in that moment of decision when he picks up his chosen oars and begins to use them as his own.

There are two oars that never fail when once grasped by a hand that is firm and true. The first oar is called Virtue. With this oar of moral excellency, of pure heart and clean hands, with this oar of real integrity of character and purity of soul, man’s energies are never wasted as he makes battle against opposing powers. The real sinfulness of impurity is its resultant waste of strength. Behold the wan faces, sunken eyes, wasted energies, emaciated forms, staggering steps of weakness, and the uncertainty and indecision of character, and one sees the consequences of abusing the laws of purity. But virtue means more than purity of body, it means absolute cleanliness of heart and mind and purpose.

The second oar is Righteousness. Unrighteousness is the abuse and waste of power. The New Testament word for sin is “missing the mark,” energy that is wasted by not being carefully and accurately directed. To be upright in life, free from wrong and injustice, to yield to everyone his just dues, is to have a means for directing strength and vital energy that never fails to bring the desired result.

Two oars—“Virtue,” rightness with God; “Righteousness,” rightness with man—two oars that have never been known to break no matter how much a great soul bends them in his battle with the waves. Two oars that have never yet failed to bring the ship to harbor.

This, then, is the opportunity of the church, not to manufacture oars, but to aid youth and maiden to choose the ones that God hath made. They are not new inventions, but as old as God and rugged as the Hand that made them. Firmly grasped and resolutely employed, the harbor is made in safety, although the voyage be upon a hitherto unoared sea.