"Wife! good cheer! now you can go your own way and live your own life!
Children, give praise! you have his money: the only good thing he ever gave you....
Friends! you have one less traitor to deal with....
This is indeed a day of rejoicing and exultation!
Thank God this man is dead!"
An unknown enjoyment and profit to him is the world's great field of literature, the world's great thinkers, the inspirers of so many through all the ages. That splendid verse by Emily Dickinson means as much to him as it would to a dumb stolid ox:
He ate and drank the precious words,
His spirit grew robust,
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was dust;
He danced along the dingy days,
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book! What liberty
A loosened spirit brings!
Yes, life and its manifold possibilities of unfoldment and avenues of enjoyment—life, and the things that pertain to it—is an infinitely greater thing than the mere accessories of life.
What infinite avenues of enjoyment, what peace of mind, what serenity of soul may be the possession of all men and all women who are alive to the inner possibilities of life as portrayed by our own prophet, Emerson, when he said:
Oh, when I am safe in my sylvan home,
I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;
And when I am stretched beneath the pines,
Where the evening star so holy shines,
I laugh at the lore and pride of man,
At the Sophist schools and the learned clan;
For what are they all in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet?
It was he who has exerted such a world-wide influence upon the minds and lives of men and women who also said: "Great men are they who see that spirituality is stronger than any material force: that thoughts rule the world." And this is true not only of the world in general, but it is true likewise in regard to the individual life.
One of the great secrets of all successful living is unquestionably the striking of the right balance in life. The material has its place—and a very important place. Fools indeed were we to ignore or to attempt to ignore this fact. We cannot, however, except to our detriment, put the cart before the horse. Things may contribute to happiness, but things cannot bring happiness—and sad indeed, and crippled and dwarfed and stunted becomes the life of every one who is not capable of realising this fact. Eternally true indeed is it that the life is more than meat and the body more than raiment.
All life is from an inner centre outward. As within, so without. As we think we become. Which means simply this: our prevailing thoughts and emotions are never static, but dynamic. Thoughts are forces—like creates like, and like attracts like. It is therefore for us to choose whether we shall be interested primarily in the great spiritual forces and powers of life, or whether we shall be interested solely in the material things of life.
But there is a wonderful law which we must not lose sight of. It is to the effect that when we become sufficiently alive to the inner powers and forces, to the inner springs of life, the material things of life will not only follow in a natural and healthy sequence, but they will also assume their right proportions. They will take their right places.