Unity, steadfastness, and power of will mark the great workers. A dominant impulse urges them forward, and with firm tread they move on till death bids them stay. As the will succumbs to idleness and sin, it can be developed and maintained in health and vigor only by right action.
If thou makest thy intellectual and moral improvement thy chief business, thou shalt not lack for employment, and with thy progress thy joy and freedom shall increase.
Progress is betterment of life. The accumulation of discoveries, the multiplication of inventions, the improvement of the means of comfort, the extension of instruction, and the perfecting of methods, are valuable in the degree in which they contribute to this end. The characteristic of progress is increase of spiritual force. In material progress even, the intellectual and moral element is the value-giving factor. Progress begets belief in progress. As we grow in worth and wisdom, our faith in knowledge and conduct is developed and confirmed, and with more willing hearts we make ourselves the servants of righteousness and love; for in the degree in which religion and culture prevail within us, co-operation for life tends to supersede the struggle for life, which if not the dominant law, is, at least, the general course of things when left to Nature's sway.
Catchwords, such as progress, culture, enlightenment, and liberty, are for the multitude rarely more than psittacisms, mere parrot sounds. So long as we genuinely believe in an ideal and strive to incarnate it, the spirit of hope kindles the flame of enthusiasm within the breast. Its attainment, however, if the ideal is sensual or material, leads to disappointment and weariness. Behold yonder worshipper at the shrine of money and pleasure, whose life is but a yawn between his woman and his wine. But if the ideal is spiritual, failure in the pursuit cannot dishearten us, and success but opens to view diviner worlds towards which we turn our thought and love with self-renewing freshness of mind.
If thou seekest for beauty, it is everywhere; if for hideousness, it too is everywhere.
To believe in one's self, to have genuine faith in the impressions, thoughts, hopes, loves, and aspirations which are in one's own soul, and to strive ceaselessly to come to clear knowledge of this inner world which each one bears within himself, is the secret of culture. To bend one's will day by day to the weaving this light of the mind and warmth of the heart into the substance of life, into conduct, is the secret of character. At whatever point of time or space we find ourselves, we can begin or continue the task of self-improvement; for the only essential thing is the activity of the soul, seeking to become conscious of itself, through and in God and His universe.
The little bird upbuilds its nest
Of little things by ceaseless quest:
And he who labors without rest
By little steps will reach life's crest.
The true reader is brought into contact with a personality which reveals itself or permits its secret to be divined. In spirit and imagination he lives the life of the author. In his book he finds the experience and wisdom of years compressed into a few pages which he reads in an hour. The vital sublimation of what made a man is thus given him in its essence to exalt or to degrade, to inspire or to deaden his soul. In looking through the eyes of another, he learns to see himself, to understand his affinities and his tendencies, his strength and his weakness. Eat this volume and go speak to the children of Israel, said the spirit to the prophet Ezekiel. The meaning is—mentally devour, digest, and assimilate the book into the fibre and structure of thy very being, and then shalt thou be able to utter words of truth and wisdom to God's chosen ones. The world's spiritual wealth, so far as it has existence other than in the minds of individuals, is stored in literature, in books,—the great treasure-house of the soul's life, of what the best and greatest have thought, known, believed, felt, suffered, desired, toiled, and died for; and whoever fails to make himself a home in this realm of truth, light, and freedom, is shut out from what is highest and most divine in human experience, and sinks into the grave without having lived.
To those who have uttered themselves in public speech, there comes at times a feeling akin to self-reproach. They have taken upon themselves the office of teacher, and yet what have they taught that is worth knowing and loving? They have lost the privacy in which so much of the charm and freedom of life consists; they have been praised or blamed without discernment; and a great part of what they have said and written seems to themselves little more than a skeleton from which the living vesture has fallen. Ask them not to encourage any one to become an author. The more they have deafened the world with their voices, the more will they, like Carlyle, praise the Eternal Silence. They have in fact been taught, by hard experience, that the worth of life lies not in saying or writing anything whatever, but in pure faith, in humble obedience, in brave and steadfast striving. The woman who sweeps a room, the mother who nurses her child, the laborer who sows and reaps, believing and feeling that they are working with God, are leading nobler lives and doing diviner things than the declaimers and theorizers, and the religion which upholds them and lightens their burdens is better than all the philosophies.