The law of the struggle for life applies to opinions, beliefs, hopes, aims, ideals, just as it applies to individuals and species. Whatever survives, survives through conflict, because it is fit to survive. It does not follow, however, that the best survives, though we must think that in the end this is so, since we believe in God. When serious minds grapple with problems so remote from vulgar opinion that they seem to be meaningless or insoluble, the multitude, ever ready, like a crowd of boys, to mock and jeer, break forth into insult. These men, they cry are wicked, or they are fools.
In a society where it is assumed that all are equal, those who are really superior incur suspicion as though it were criminal to be different from the multitude; and hence they rarely win the favor of the crowd. The life-current of those who stir up a noise about them, runs shallow. The champion of the prize-ring or the race-course is hailed with shouts, for the crowd understand the achievement; but what can they know of the worth of a sage or a saint? The noblest struggles are of the mind and heart wrestling with unseen powers, with spirits, as St. Paul says, that they may compel them to give up the secret of truth and holiness. A glimpse of truth, a thrill of love, is better than the applause of a whole city. In striving steadfastly for thy own perfection and the happiness of others thou walkest and workest with God. Thy progress will help others to labor for their own, and the happiness thou givest will return to thee and become thine; and what is the will of God, if it is not the perfection and happiness of his children? To have merely enough strength to bear life's burden, to do the daily task, to face the cares which return with the sun and follow us into the night, is to be weak, is to lack the strong spirit for which work is light as play, and whose secret is heard in whispers by the hero and the saint. To be able to give joy and help to others we must have more life, wisdom, virtue, and happiness than we need for ourselves; and it is in giving joy and help to others that we ourselves receive increase of life, wisdom, virtue, and happiness. Be persuaded within thy deepest soul, that moral evil can never be good, and that sin can never be gain. So act that if all men acted as thou, all would be well. If to be like others is thy aim, thou art predestined to remain inferior. To be followed and applauded is to be diverted from one's work. Better alone with it in a garret than a guest in a banquet hall.
Let thy prayer be work and work thy prayer,
As God's truth and love are everywhere,
And whether by word or deed thou strive
In Him alone thou canst be alive.
If thou hast done thy best, God will give it worth.
If thou carest not for truth and love, for thee they are nothing worth; but it is because thou thyself art worthless. Wisdom and virtue is all thou lackest; of other things thou hast enough. When the passion for self-improvement is strong within us, all our relations to our fellow-men and nature receive new meaning and power, as opportunities to make ourselves what it is possible for us to become; and as we grow accustomed to take this view of whatever happens, we are made aware that disagreeable things are worth as much as the pleasant, that foes are as useful as friends. The obstacle arrests attention, provokes effort, and educates. It throws the light back upon the eye, and reveals the world of color and form; from it all sounds reverberate. We grow by overcoming; the force we conquer becomes our own. We rise on difficulties we surmount. What opposes, arouses, strengthens, and disciplines the will, discloses to the mind its power, and implants faith in the efficacy of patient, persevering labor. They who shrink from the combat are already defeated. To make everything easy is to smooth the way whereby we descend. To surround the young with what they ought themselves to achieve is to enfeeble and corrupt them. Happy is the poor man's son, who whithersoever he turns, sees the obstacle rise to challenge him to become a man; miserable the children of the rich, whose cursed-blessed fortune is an ever-present invitation to idleness and conceit. O mothers, you whose love is the best any of us have known, harden your sons, and urge them on, not in the race for wealth, but in the steep and narrow way wherein, through self-conquest and self-knowledge, they rise toward God and all high things. Nothing that has ever been said of your power tells the whole truth, and the only argument against you is the men who are your children. Education is always the result of personal influence. A mother, a father in the home, a pure and loving heart at the altar, a true man or woman in the school, a noble mind uttering itself in literature, which is personal thought and expression,—these are the forces which educate. Life proceeds from life, and religion, which is the highest power of life, can proceed only from God and religious souls. Not by preaching and teaching, but by living the life, can we make ourselves centres of spiritual influence.
Be like others, walk in the broad way, one of a herd, content to graze in a common pasture, believing equality man's highest law, though its meaning be equality with the brute. Is this our ideal? It is an atheistic creed. There is no God, there is nothing but matter, but atoms, and atoms are alike and equal,—let men be so too. To struggle with infinite faith and hope for some divine good is idolatry, is to believe in God; to be one's self is the unpardonable sin. It is thy aim to rise, to distinguish thyself; this means thou wouldst have higher place, more money, a greater house than thy neighbor's. It is a foolish ambition. Instead of trying to distinguish thyself, strive to become thyself, to make thyself worthy of the approval of God and wise men. "I am not to be pitied, my lord," said Bayard; "I die doing my duty." God has not given His world into thy keeping, but he has given thee to thyself to fashion and complete. If thou art busy seeking money or pleasure or praise, little time will remain wherein to seek and find thyself. They who are interesting to themselves, are interesting to themselves alone. The self-absorbed are the victims of mental and moral disease. The life which flows out to others, bearing light and warmth and fragrance, feels itself in the blessings it gives; that which is self-centred, stagnates like a pool, and becomes the habitation of doleful creatures.
There is a popularity which is born of the worship of noble deeds,—it is the best. There is another, which comes of the crowd's passion for what is noisy and spectacular,—it is the worst. The one is the popularity of heroes, the other that of charlatans.
Whatever thy chosen work, it is thy business to make thyself a man or a woman, and not a mere specialist; yet in following a specialty with enthusiasm, thou shalt go farther towards perfection and completeness of life than the multitude of pretenders, who are not in earnest about anything. Every harsh and unjust sentiment, every narrow and unworthy thought consented to and entertained, remains like a stain upon character. Whoever speaks or writes against freedom or knowledge or faith in God, or love of man or reverence of woman, but makes himself ridiculous; for men feel and believe that their true world is a world of high thoughts and noble sentiments, and they can neither respect nor trust those who strive to weaken their hold upon this world. Become thyself; do thy work. For this, all thy days are not too many or too long. If thou and it are worthy to be known, the presentation can be made in briefest time; and it matters little though it be deferred until after thy death.
Besides whatever other conditions, time is necessary to bring the best things to maturity, and to imagine that excellence demands less than lifelong work, is to mistake. It is by the patient observation of the infinitesimal that science has done its best work; and it is only by unwearying attention to the thousand little things of life that we may hope to make some approach to moral and intellectual perfection. He who works with joy and cheerfulness in the field which himself has found and chosen, will acquire knowledge and skill, and his labor will be transformed into increase and newness of life.
We gain a clear view of things only when we set them apart from ourselves, and contemplate them simply as objects of thought. To see them aright we must be free from emotion and behold them in the cold air of the intellect. To look on them as in some way bound up with our personal good or evil, is to have the vision blurred. Study in the spirit of an investigator, who has no other than a scientific interest in what he sets himself to examine. The wise physician is wholly intent upon making a correct diagnosis, though the patient be his mother. What gain would self-delusion bring him or her he loves? Things are what they are, and it is our business to know them. Observe and hold thy judgment in suspense until patient looking shall have made truth so plain that to pass judgment is superfluous.