A great scientist tells us that there is no natural object in the universe which, if seen as the Master sees it, coupled with all its infinite meaning, its utility and purpose, is not beautiful. Beauty is God's handwriting. Just as the most disgusting object, if put under a magnifying glass of sufficient power, would reveal beauties undreamed of, so even the most unlovely environment, the most cruel conditions, will, when viewed through the glass of a trained and disciplined mind, show something of the beautiful and the hopeful. A life that has been rightly trained will extract sweetness from everything; it will see beauty everywhere.
Situated as we are in a world of beauty and sublimity, we have no right to devote practically all of our energies and to sap all our life forces in the pursuit of selfish aims, in accumulating material wealth, in piling up dollars. It is our duty to treat life as a glory, not as a grind or a purely business transaction, dealing wholly with money and bread-and-butter questions. Wherever you are, put beauty into your life.
CHAPTER LII
EDUCATION BY ABSORPTION
John Wanamaker was once asked to invest in an expedition to recover from the Spanish Main doubloons which for half a century had lain at the bottom of the sea in sunken frigates.
"Young men," he replied, "I know of a better expedition than this, right here. Near your own feet lie treasures untold; you can have them all by faithful study.
"Let us not be content to mine the most coal, to make the largest locomotives, to weave the largest quantities of carpets; but, amid the sounds of the pick, the blows of the hammer, the rattle of the looms, and the roar of the machinery, take care that the immortal mechanism of God's own hand—the mind—is still full-trained for the highest and noblest service."
The uneducated man is always placed at a great disadvantage. No matter how much natural ability one may have, if he is ignorant, he is discounted. It is not enough to possess ability, it must be made available by mental discipline.
We ought to be ashamed to remain in ignorance in a land where the blind, the deaf and dumb, and even cripples and invalids, manage to obtain a good education.