THE MARDEN

INSPIRATIONAL BOOKS

Be Go od to Yourself.E very M an a King.

E x ceptional Employee .Getting On .

H e Can Who Thinks H e Can .

H ow to Get What You Want.! oys o f Living.

Keeping Fi t.

M aking Life a M asterp iece .M iracle o f R igh t T hought.Optimisti c Life .Peace , Power, and Plenty.

Progressive Busine ss Man .

Push ing to the Fron t .R ising in theWorld .

Secret o f Achievement.Self-Investment.Selling Things .

T raining for E ffi ciency.

Victorious Attitude .Woman an d the H ome .Young M an E ntering Business.

SUCCE SS BOOKLE TSAn Iron Will . Cheerfulness. Go od M anners.

Character. E con omy. Opportunity.

Power o f Personality.

SPE CIAL BOOKLE T SH ints for Young Wr iters. I H ad a Friend .

Success Nuggets .

ORISON SWETT MARDENAuthor of “Peace, Power and Plenty,

” “Every

Man a King ,” etc .

YORK

PUBLISH E R S

TABLE OF CONTENTS

AN INVITAT ION

TRY LOVE ’

S WAY

TH E GR EATE ST THIN G IN TH E WORLDMAK IN G LIFE A SON GTH E D RE AM OF BROTHE RHOODDRIVIN G AWAY WHAT WE LON G FOR MOST

E MPLOYE RS AN D E MPLOYE E SSP ITE FE N CE S

WORK AN D H APP IN E SSPRACTI SING LOVE ’S WAY

TRAIN IN G TH E CHILD

H OW To LIGHTE N YOUR BURDE N SSURVIVAL VALUETH E M IRACLE WORKE ROUR LITTLE BROTHE R S AN D S ISTE R STH E THIN G THAT MAKE S A H OME“STRAN GE R, WHY SHOULD I N OT SPEAK

T O YOU !

I SE RVE T H E STRON GE STTH E DAILY ORIE N TATIONSCATTE R YOUR FLOWE R S As YOU Go

LOVE LE TTE R S FROM GOD

TH E HARMON Y BATHH E ROISM AT H OMEWHAT TH E BE E TE ACHE S Us

LOVE’

S WAY AND CHRISTMAS G IVIN G

LOVE’

S WAY

AN INVITATION

IF your life were wasting away from a painful disease which physicians pronounced “

i n

curable,” and a master physician should ap

pear who declared there was no such thing asan

“in curable” disease, and that he would healyou and all sufferers who would go to him,

Would you not go to him !

Did you ever realize that you have a perSOn aI invitation from One who can lift youout of all your sufferings, physical and mental ;who can solve all your problems and di fficulties !

“Come unto me, all ye that labor and areheavy laden, and I will give you rest.

” Is notthat a personal invitation from the divine physi ci an , Love ! And if you accept it, with allthat it means, you will realize that peace which“

passeth all understanding.

” Your cares and

2 LOVE’ S WAY

difficulties will melt and dissolve as snow meltsand dissolves under the sun’s rays .Are you suffering from a painful disease,from dire poverty, from crushing disappointments, from injustice or persecution, from disgrace, merited or unmerited— from any of thethousand and one things that fill the worldwith misery and unhappiness— then listen toLove ’s call, accept the divine invitation :

“Comeunto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden,and I will give you rest .”

Modern thought is putting a new meaninginto the invitation. It is extendi ng the ap

plication of Christ ’s words to every humanproblem . He put no limitations to his i nvitati on , which is the voice of D ivine Love, call1ng to us . It saysCome unto me, all ye that labor and are

heavy laden,and I will relieve you from the

drudgery of your labor, because I will put anew spirit in you . I will replace your senseof drudgery with j oy in your task, with loveof service ; I will turn you about so that youwill face the light and your shadows will nolonger haunt you because they will fall behindyou .

AN INVITATION 3

Come unto me and I will give you restfrom that incubus of fear that has made youa slave in the past ; I will relieve you fromanxiety and worry which have cut down yourefficiency and made a pygmy out of a possiblegiant . I will take away the fear of death,the fear of sickness, the fear of inherited disease, all the fears that hold you d own andbreak your spirit .

“Come unto me all ye who are unhappy andI will make you glad . No matter what darkens your horizon or troubles your life, cometo me, and I will give you rest. I will satisfyyour yearnings, the longings of your heart ; Iwill show you your divinity.

Come un to me all ye who are disappointedin life, whose ambitions have been thwartedand I will Show you how to overcome yourdisappointment . I will show you how to useyour divine power so that you may still makegood .

“Come un to me, ye who are held back byi ll health, by bodily weakness, by physicalhandicaps from doing what you longed to do

,

and I will Show you how to be well,how to

be strong. I will Show you that bein g God’s

4 LOVE’ S WAY

child, and therefore one with your Father youcannot be sick, you cannot be weak or miserable except through wrong thinking. Thetruth of your being, the reality of you, beingd ivine, cannot suffer pa i n, or defeat.

“Come unto me all ye who have botchedyour lives and I will show you how you maystill triumph , I will show you that the realityof you is always triumphant, masterful . I

will show you that one who holds the rightmen tal attitude, who realizes his divine powercan rise above all his mistakes and failures .

“Come unto me all ye that have been discouraged, defeated in life, and I will give youthe truth that makes free from all limitation,free from the l imitations of poverty, of failure,the limitations of the flesh

,for I will Show

you the mind triumphant, the Victorious attitude .Come unto me all ye whose aspirations

have been blighted” whose ideals have beenblurred, whose Visions have faded out, and Iwill revive them, bring them back to the brightn ess and promise of your palmier days .

“Come unto me all ye that are dej ected,despondent, wandering in the darkn ess, and I

AN INVITATION 5

wi ll put a new spirit in you, a new lamp inyour

'

path. I will flood your souls with glory,with the li ght that never was on land or sea .

“Come unto me all ye who feel friendlessand alone and I will fill your lives with a newinterest, with new friendships, which will neverfail

,never grow wearisome .

“Come unto me all ye who are‘

di ffiden t,

self-conscious, bashful, timid, or self-depreci atory, who do not believe in yourselves, andI will show you how to rid yourself of all ofthese weakn esses . I will show you how toeliminate all defects which strangle self-expression, rob you of power and happiness, andhinder you in your effort to do your best andto appear at your best .

“Come unto me all ye that worry and fearand I will give you a prescription which willheal you . I, Divine Love, will Show you thati t i s ignorance of your locked-up powers inthe great within of you that makes you aworrier, a coward, or a weakling ; that all whotrust me, who come to me, have nothing tofear, nothing to worry about .

“Come unto me all ye that bicker and fi ght,

all ye that backbite and hate, all ye that are

6 LOVE’ S WAY

torn with j ealousy, hatred, envy, and I willshow ye that you are brothers and cann ot fightwhen you know the truth of your kinship

,or

envy or hate or injure one another withoutfighting, hating, envying or injuring yourselves .

“Come unto me all ye that are greedy,grasping, selfish, and I will Show you a betterway, something that pays better than greed,something infinitely more satisfying than selfi shn ess . I will make you so ashamed of yourselfishness that you will hate it

,that it will

pain you to live in luxury while your brothersand sisters are hungry and cold .

“Come unto me all ye who are victims ofIndecision, who doubt and hesitate, who weighand balance and reconsider things all the time,and I will show you how to strengthen yourwill, how to conquer vacillation .

Come unto me all ye who have yielded totemptation, who have made grievous mistakes,and been punished by society for your wrongdoing

,and I will wash your souls whiter than

snow. I will show you that no matter whatyou may have done in the past you can retri eve your mistakes, and still make good ; I

AN INVITATION ‘7

will show you that the image of your Makeris still intact

,that it has never been marred,

scarred or stain ed, that the reality of you today is perfect, pure and true as it ever was .

“Come unto me all ye who are the slaves ofhabits which have blasted your hopes, blightedyour happiness, thwarted your ambition, andcast their black shadows across your life, andI will Show you how to break away from thethings which are ruining you . I will Show youhow to free yourself from all evil habits—i ntemperance, impurity, lying, dishonesty, gambling, the drug habit, whatever it i s that i sthwarting God’s purpose in you .

“Come unto me all ye who are down andout, homeless, moneyless, friendless, outcastsfrom society, and I will Show you that you areright now living in a paradise of a world, thatperpetual miracles are being performed allabout you, more. wonderful than the raising ofthe dead, that you have wealth in yourself,untold wealth . I will Show you that you stillhave that which will make you rich beyondyour wildest dreams, will show you that yourreal wealth can never be lost because this isGod-wealth, divine riches .

8 LOVE’ S WAY

Love is the great leveling up force of theworld . Nothing else has ever made such atremendous appeal to those who have botchedtheir lives and thrown away their chances,those whose lives have been blasted by ign orance, by sin or other unfortunate conditions .Love does not condemn, does not criticize,does not judge, does not punish, does notostracize, does not exclude . This is not love

’sway. To the worst criminal, to the most degraded sinner, i t simply says Go and sin n o

more .” This is its only condemnation .

Love ’s way is Christ ’s way. It says, Loveyour enemies, bless those that curse you

“LethlIIl that is without sin cast the first stone” ;and on this condition no one can cast a stonebecause there is no one without sin, no onewithout some weakness as unfortunate as hisneighbor ’s .Love is the only force in the universe thatcan say

“I am that marvelous force which has made

c1vfl i zati on possible . I have led the humanrace up from the ape stage to its present de

velopmen t, and I will lead it to heights yet

undreamed of.

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10 LOVE’ S WAY

insane asylums, and all sorts of homes, for theaged, for the dependent, and for helpless dumbanimals .

“My mission on earth is to help, to heal, touplift, to bring cheer and comfort, happinessto every one of God’s children. I am thegood Samaritan who heals the wounds whichthe selfish, the hard—hearted pass by with i n di fference . I am the spirit behind the Red Cross,the Salvation Army, and all other organizations of mercy. I am the power back of allmovements which are for the betterment of theworld

,the upliftment of man.

“I am the great fundamental law of progress, the truth that shall make you free . I

am the essence of all true religion, of all thatis valuable in all creeds . I am the Christspirit, the Golden Rule ; I am that force whichi s tying human beings together in one grand

'

cooperative. solidarity.

“I am the spirit of courage, that which keepsmen from playing the coward when sorelytempted to do so, which bids them go on whenthey would turn back. I appeal especiallyto the down and outs, to those who are discouraged, those who think they are nobodies .

AN INVITATION 1 1

I am a friend to the downtrodden, to the neglected, the despairing. I bring them newhope

,new courage, new life .I am that force which has liberated the

slaves of all the nations ; of the earth, whichhas given freedom of conscience and freedomof thought to all men . I am that which ishumanizing the hard-hearted, slave-drivingemployer, killing his selfish grasping greed,an d Showing him that all men are brothers . Iam that which shows you that your neighboris yourself, and that you, therefore, must loveh im as yourself.

“I am that which takes the sting out of sorrow and the bitterness out of disappointment ;that which heals the broken heart, breatheshope to the discouraged, and good cheer tothe despondent .

“I am that which blesses where others curse,loves where others hate, forgets and f orgiveswhere others remember and condemn. I amthat which yields where others strive ; thatwhich makes people enj oy what others own,because I neutralize envy and covetousness .Anger, hatred, bitterness, j ealousy, envy, discontent, cannot live an instant in my presence,

12 LOVE’S WAY

because I neutralize everything which is unlikemyself.

“I am the great miracle worker in theworld’s history. I am that which lifts ideals ;which takes the sordidness out of life

,which

urges people to be and to do instead of tohave and to hold .

“I am that benign power which transformsquarreling

,j ealous, envious neighbors and

makes them live together like brothers andsisters . I heal family discords, j ealousies andhatreds . I make quarreling, discordant partners friends . I neutralize the sting i n cruelsarcasm and bitter invective . I take the dagger out of insults and quench the fire of hottemper. I cure all resentment, all feeling ofhate, bitterness and malice .

“I am that which dwelleth in the secret placeof the Most High . I am the healing balm forthe nations . I am the bahn in Gilead for allhuman woes . I am that divine understandingwhich makes the mother see. in her waywardson not the criminal

,but the divine man that

God planned,and that it is still possible for

him to be . When everybody else condemn s

AN INVITATION 13

the outcast, I call halt, and say‘Wait, there

is a God in that man somewhere . ’“I am the comforter of the condemned, whoVisits the prisoner in hi s cell, and lifts him outof his despair. I light up the darkness of allcondemned, assuage grief, gi ve hope to theforlorn . I am here especially for those whohave lost hope . I revIve their courage, givethem heart to make a new start .

“I am the voice of God, crying to his children—‘ Come unto me all ye that are downcast, discouraged, despairing, who think yourambitions are thwarted

,and that there is no

more h0 pe for you, come unto me and I willrenew your lives . I am a reviver of lostVisions, a renewer of faded dreams, a resurrector of dead ambitions, a savior for all whoaccept my invitation .

’

“I am that sacred messenger which was detailed at your birth to go with you throughlife as your counsellor, your protector, yourguide, your friend . If you have wanderedaway from me, lost your way on the life path,come back, and I will give you strength tomake a fresh beginn ing and to be the man or

14 LOVE’S WAY

woman God intended you to be . I will neverfail you .

“I will show you that the divinity of man18 beyond the reach of poverty or failure, orany possible disgrace or crime ; that the Godimage in man is perfect, immortal ; that i tnever had beginning and will never have anend ; nor can any power in heaven or earthtake it away from a man

,contaminate or i n

jure it, because the God in man is immunefrom any disaster or misfortune that couldpossibly come to him . It is indestructible .

“Come unto me all ye that labor and areheavy laden and I will give you the rest forwhich your soul yearns .

TRY LOVE’ S WAY

ONE who has tried love’s way in workingout life’s problems says,

“I find it a charm.

It is a preventive against sin, disease, un

happin ess, and brings with it health and pros

peri ty.

”

If those of us who are livi ng in inharmonyof any sort would only try love’s way, evenfor a short time, we never could be inducedto go back to the old way of living. We couldnever again be satisfied with the old scolding,j ealous, anxious, faultfindi ng, slave-driving,worrying ways .Why not try the experiment ! You whohave been tortured and torn to pieces for yearswith hot tempers, with worry, with fear, withhatred and ill will ; you who have already commi tted suicide on many years of your life

,why

not turn your back on all this and try love’sway !

You whose home life has been a b i tter di s15

16 LOVE’ S WAY

appointment ; you husbands and wives whohave quarreled

,who have never known what

peace and comfort are, give love’s way a trial .

It will not disappoint you . Love will smoothout all your wrinkles, it will put a new spiritinto your home that Was never there before,it will bring a new light into your eyes, newhOpe and new j oy into your heart .You whose lives have been lonely and barren, who, perhaps, have soured on life ; youdoubters, you skeptics, you pessimi sts, youwho have tried the selfish way, the greedy way,who have, sought only your own happiness,you who have tried the fretting way, theworrying way, you whose lives are filled withfear and j ealousy and all sorts of discords ,why not try love ’s way !

All other ways than love’s have fa i led tobring happiness . The

‘

s elfish way always willfail, because it is not in harmony with the lawof God, with eternal principle . Love

’s way is .It harmonizes with all that is real, all that istrue and beautiful, and it always works . Itwill unravel all your snarls and solve all yourproblems .There is a better way for all you, who, so

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18 LOVE’ S WAY

your domestic machinery run much moresmoothly. See if it will not wonderfully re

lieve the stram upon yourself. Give love ’sway a trial .Forced work

,forced obedience, never brings

the best results . I know a man who is sowrought up all the time by trying to regulateeverybody and everything to his individualpattern, to bring everybody to his way ofthinking, and to do things just as he doesthem, that there is no living in peace withhim . His children fairly dread his home coming. No matter what they are doing it iswrong. He is sure to blame his wife and theservants for something they did or did not do .He. makes himself and everybody else in thehome miserable by his narrowness and hisdomineering spirit .The same thing i s\~true in his business .Nothing suits him. He is always grumbling,finding fault

,nagging, discouraging his em

ployees . He doesn’t know that a little bit ofencouragement and praise when they do wellwould accomplish infinitely more than all hisscolding

,fretting, stewing and faultfin di ng,

to which they have become so accustomed that

TRY LOVE ’S WAY 19

it has no effect other than to disgust and makethem uncomfortable .The habit of trying to control people

,boss

ing them,trying to make them do things our

way, the habit of keeping everlastingly afterour children, with don

’ts and shan’ts, andmusts

,trying to force our life partner, our

associates, our employees, to do things according to our ideas, the habit of contradicting andcalling people down, of trying to regulateeverybody and get all into line, is destructiveof all mental harmony. It saps your energies ,injures your disposition, and antagonizes allwho come in contact with you .

Love’s way is the very opposite of this . Itis broad and generous

,just

,magnanimous . It

respects the rights and feelings of others .Love does not try to correct defects, to changeundesirable qualities or tendencies bycontinually calli ng attention to them and findingfault . It si Inply neutralizes them . Lovedrives those defects and bad qualities out ofthe nature just as the sun drives the darknessout of a room when the shutters are flungopen .

If there i s discord in your home,you will

2 0 LOVE’ S WAY

be delighted to find how quickly love ’s waywill drive out the darkness, and let in the lightof harmony. It will change the atmospherein your family as if by magic. It will bringa new spirit into your home, and soon helpful relations will take the place of antagonisticones . Let sympathy and kindness take theplace of scolding and nagging, and you willwork a revolution In your household . Generous, wholehearted, unstinted praise, nowand then

,will act like lubricating oil on dry

squeaky machinery,and its reflex action on

yourself will be magical.Try love’s way, you men who have beenlording it over your families, bullying andbrowbeating your wives and children, usingslave-driving methods in your home . Youknow that this old brutal way has not brought

you happiness or sati sf action ; you have al

ways been disappointed with i t, then why nottry the new philosophy, try love

’s way ! Iti s the great cure-all, it is the Christ remedy

which is leavening the world .

Try it, you faultfin d i ng, scolding housewife . Instead of nagging your family, fretting and stewing from morning till night,

TRY LOVE ’S WAY 2 1

blamin g, upbraiding, complaining, try love’s

way. Instead of berating a maid before yourguests when she accidentally breaks a piece ofchina

,put yourself in her place, try to realize

her embarrassment, and pass over the mishapcheerfully. Then, in private, give her a gentleword of cauti on . She will be more careful inthe future. If your laundress returns a pieceof smirched linen, or if her work is not quiteso well done as it was the last time, don

’t giveher a brutal scolding. Harsh treatment willonly make her sullen and unhappy, but youwill find her very susceptible to ki ndn ess andgentle words .You men and women who have never beenable to get good help, who are driven to des

pefati on with the wicked breakage and wastage of your employees ; you who have suff eredtorture in your struggle with dishonesty andinefficiency, whose faces are furrowed withcruel wrinkles and prematurely aged in tryi ng to fight evil with evil

,try love ’s way.

Try it, all you who are worn out with thediscord and the haggli ngs, the trials and tribulati on s you encounter every day in your business . It wi ll create a new spirit In your store,

22 LOVE’ S WAY

your factory, your office . Whatever yourbusiness

,whatever your trials and difficulties,

love will ease the j olts of life and smooth yourway miraculously. Try love ’s way all you whohave hitherto lived in purgatory because youdid not know this better way.

Near Grant’s Tomb in New York, on thebluffs overlooking the Hudson, is a little marble monument over a century old . It waserected to a little four-year-old boy who wasso genial and lovable that everybody who knewhim loved him, and it bears this si rnple i n

scription,“An amiable child . This is the

whole story of the little life, which must havebeen a beautiful illustration of love ’s way, forlove is always amiable .Love’s way includes everything that

’

isbeautiful

,everything that is kind and good

and clean and true, everything that is worthhaving. It carries no regrets, it never leavesus sorry . It is pure as the life of a little child .

There is always an Amen of the soul to allits acts . Love ’s way always leads us aright,because it is the God way.

Try love ’s way, it holds the great secret of

happiness .

TH E GREATEST THING IN TH E WORLD

Love i s the l i fe of the soulIt i s the harmony of the Universe .

CH AN N IN G.

DICTIONARIES gi ve half a column to thedefinition of love . In three words, the Biblegives us all its limi tless meaning : God i slovef

’

God is infinite,therefore love is infinite, and

Includes in itself all God’s attributes . Lifewithout love is valueless .By the common consent of mankind in allthe ages , the most beautiful thing on this earth,that which every human being has ever cravedmost, is love . It is, as Henry Ward Beechersaid,

“the river of life in this world . Thinknot that ye know it who stand at the littletinkling rill, the first small fountain. Notuntil you have gone through the rocky gorges,and not lost the stream ; not until you havegone through the meadow

,and the stream has

widened and deepened until fleets could ride23

24 LOVE’

s WAY

on its bosom ; not until beyond the meadowyou have come to the unfathomable ocean, andpoured your treasures into its depths—not

until then can you know what love i s.

Somewhere I have read the story of a sun

beam that had heard there were places on theearth so horrible, So dark, dismal and gloomythat it was Impossible to describe them . Thesunbeam resolved to find these places, andstarted on its j ourney with lightn ing speed.

It Visited the caverns of the earth . It glidedinto sunless homes

,into dark alleys, into

underground cellars ; it wandered everywherein its quest to see what the darkness was like,but the sunbeam never found the darkness because wherever it went it carried its own lightwith it . Every spot it Visited

,no matter how

dark and dismal before i ts entry, was brightened and cheered by its presence .The sun is a beautiful symbol of love. Itsends its cheering

,life-giving ray into the

wretched hovel, into the prison cell, as imparti ally as into the palace ; it gives itself as unstintingly, as j oyously to the worst criminal,to the poorest wretch who crawls the earth inrags, as to the monarch on his throne. It i s

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26 LOVE’ S WAY

the best in us . It looks back of weakness, backof criminality, back of our deficient image ofourselves, back of our conviction of our weakness, of our inferiority, and sees the divine. thati s within us, waiting to be called out . It nulocks our nature and releases Wonderful powerswhich had been buried so deep that we wereunconscious of them.

Love sees God in the worst human ruin .

It gives everybody a chance . No human bei ng

'

has ever yet forfeited the chance to tryagain. When nothing else is left, when life isfull of bitterness and

!

anguish, the thief, themurderer, the failure, the outcast, turns tolove and finds a refuge, for

“Love neverfaileth.

” It i s to every human being whatmother love i s to the erring child . No son ordaughter has ever fallen so low as to get beyond a mother’s love . No man or woman canever get beyond the redemptive power of love .It is the sovereign remedy for all ills .The mother doesn’t ask “Which is my bestchild ! ” and confer her favors upon that oneabove all the others . No, she loves them all .If there is any difference, she gives the mostlove to the one who needs i t most,— the weak

THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD 2 7

est,the most delicate, the one, least favored

by nature,the cripple

,the deformed or de

fecti ve. Love ’s delight is in helping the unfortunate and raising the fallen. Whentroubles come and fairweather friends havedeserted you ; when your business is ruined ;when you have made fatal mistakes and so

ci ety has closed its doors on you ; when everybody else rej ects and denounces you

,when

everything else has failed, then love comes andstands by you, pours oil on your wounds, andhelps you get on your feet again .

Love judges no one, condemns no one. Italways pleads for mercy for the man or thewoman who has gone astray on the life path .

It says, don’t condemn that poor wretch,

there i s a God in him somewhere” ; and to thefallen woman,

“Neither do I condemn thee :Go and sin no more .” It follows the worstsinner and the most hardened criminal to thegrave, and beyond .

‘Love has worked the greatest miracles inthe world’s history. We have all seen thetransformation it has wrought in a coarse,ignorant, brutal life, when a youth on the verytoboggan slide toward destructi on has fallen

28 LOVE’ S WAY

in love wi th some sweet, beautiful girl, whoreturns his love . In a short time his life hascleared up ; it has been lifted up by the regencrating power of love . One by one his vicioushabits have been replaced by the ir opposites,and he has become a new man.

Where every other reformative agency fails,love succeeds, because it touches the highersprings of life, as nothing else can. It is i ntuitive because it is sympathetic, and has away of reaching down to the heart of thin gsimpossible to the soul not guided by it . Againand again i t transforms the most Vicious natures, eliminates the brute, and calls out thefinest and highest qualities in a man or woman.

No power can resist the love force ; nothingcan destroy it. Poverty cannot stifle it , neglect cannot weaken it ; disgrace cannot ki llit . The drunken, brutal sot cannot blot it outof the heart of the devoted wi fe ; _

i ngrati tude'

cannot quench its flame in the. mother’s heart.It is performing miracles in our prisons ;and on the battlefield it is a ministering angel .Its representative, the Red Cross organization

,is showing us the meaning of God’s love,

in binding up the wounds of friend and enemy

THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD 29

alike . Right or wrong, no matter on whichside they fight, love recognizes no nati onality,sees only God’s children i n all the woundedand dying soldiers .Love overcometh fear, because i t i s the antidote of fear. It is the only power that canconquer this, the greatest human curse, whichhas caused man more suffering than anyother one thing. Love blesses where otherscurse ; remembers where others forget ; forgives where others condemn ; gives whereothers withhold .

“Love takes the sting fromdisappo i ntments and sorrow ; it breathes musicinto the voice, into the footsteps ; it givesworth and beauty to the commonest office ; itsurrounds home with an atmosphere of moralhealth ; it gives power to effort and wings toprogress, it is omnipotent .

”

Love is the great mind opener, the greatheart Opener and life enricher, the great developer. It is what holds society together ; itit the Christ spirit which i s leavening theworld . T he only thing which is universallyunderstood, which speaks all languages, all

dialects,which is an open book to the most

ignorant,those who do not know their letters

,

30 LovE’

s WAY

who cannot write their own names, is love .Even though they do not understand eachother ’s native tongue, two people meeting anywhere on earth understand the language oflove as spoken by each other . The only thingwhich makes life endurable, which takes thedrudgery out of work, the suffering out ofpain, the deprivation out of poverty, is love.There is no other experience in our livesthat ever gives the satisfaction, the j oy thatcomes from loving and being loved in return .

What greater happiness can there be thangiving happ i ness to those who appreciate it,those who love us and are devoted to us ! Thehuman heart was made for love, —and everyone can draw to himself as much as he sendsout . Love ’s happiness lies in making othershappy. Love was born a twin and cannot behappy alone. It must share everything it haswith others . It is never selfish, never envious,never grasping or greedy. In business, lovealways takes account of the man at the otherend of the bargain . It is always fair

,and

just. It never takes advantage of, or injuresanother . Love is always generous, helpful,kind .

THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD 3 1

In his incomparable little book,The Great

est Thing i n the World,” Henry Drummond

analyzes the love spectrum .

“Love is a compound thing, Paul tells uS, he writes .

“As

you have seen a man of science take a beam oflight and pass it through a crystal prism, asyou have seen it come out on the other Sideof“ the prism broken up into its componentcolors, red and blue and yellow and orange,and all the colors of the rainbow, so Paulpasses love through the magnificent pr i sm ofhis insp i red intellect and it comes out on theother side broken up into its elements .

“The Spectrum or the analysis of Love .Will you observe what its elements are ! Willyou notice that they have common names ;that they are things which can be practised byevery man in every place in life ; and how,

bya multitude of small things and ordinary virtues, the supreme thing, the summum bonum

is made up ! Patience ;‘Love suffereth long.

Kindness ;‘And is kind.

’ Generosity ;‘Love

envieth not . ’ ‘Humility ;‘Love vaunteth not

itself, is not puffed up .

’ Courtesy ;‘Doth not

behave itself unseemly.

’

Un selfishn ess ;‘ Seek

eth not her own .

’ Good Temper ;‘

I S not easily

32 LOVE’ S WAY

provoked .

’ Guilelessness ;‘Thinketh no evil . ’

S incerity ;‘Rej oi ceth not in iniquity, but re

joi ceth in the truth .

’

Drummond said that Paul’s thirteenthchapter, First Corinthians, is the greatest lovepoem ever written. When he lectured toEvangelist Moody’s students in N orthfield,

Massachusetts, he asked,“How many of you

students will j oin me in reading this chapteronce a week for the next three months ! Aman did that once and it changed hi s wholelife . Will you do it ! Will you ! ”

There are only thirteen short verses in thischapter on which Henry Drummond lays somuch stress . It can be committed to memoryin a very short time ; and i f any one will dothis and repeat it understandingly every day,there i s no doubt that i t wi ll revolution i ze hi slife.

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34 LOVE’ S WAY

people, young and old, in every condi tion, incity and country alike, what a lot of miserywould be avoided ! How much happier weShould all be !How many of us make our lives miserableby continued grumbling about our environment, our work, our neighbors, our condition

gen erally,

~because we don’t recognize God i nall our affairs !I know a woman who is always runningdown her town and the people in it . She hasno kinship with them . She feels above them .

She never has become reconciled to her en

v i ronmen t ; she says it is a Shame to be obligedto bring up children in such a dead, God-forsaken place, where people have no ideals, and,of course, She is discontented and unhappy.

Now, the trouble is not with the town, butwith the woman . She does not hold the rightmental attitude toward her neighbors ; she isnot animated by the love Spirit . She has livedin a number of towns which other inhabitantsthought were very good

,but in which she was

no happier than She is now.

The root of this woman’s discontent, as itis of many others, is petty social ambition.

MAKING LIFE A SONG 3 5

She 1S a climber ; always trying to break intothe. society of people socially above her, thosewho have a great deal more money than shehas . And because she cannot keep up withthem

,she makes herself and her family mlser

able by condemning the whole place and thepeople in her own class . She considers herself above them, and we all know how

—“

a womanwho holds herself superior to everybody in herneighborhood will be treated . Her neighbors, naturally enough, dislike her, and Showtheir resentment in all sorts of disagreeableways .Many people are always in discord withtheir environment because they do not recognize God in all the i r affairs . Instead they wastean immense amount of time and energy infretting and useless resisting, which could beused in bettering their condition .

If you are a fretter, a worrier, a pessimist,you will succumb to your unfortunate environment and be a nonentity in the world . If youare cheerful, hopeful, and an Optimist in spiteof hard conditions, your life wi ll not be afailure no matter how inhospitable your surroundings . To recognize the God In your

36 LOVE’ S WAY

self and your environment is to be already a

winner.No matter in what environment we are com

pelled to be, we should try to get into harmony with it sufficiently to enable us to worksmoothly, Without the friction which exhaustsand tears down . Friction in the humansystem is like sand in a piece of delicatemachinery, which grinds and wears out thebearings much more quickly than theregularwork which the machine is intended to perform .

No one can be happy or do good work whileholding an antagonistic, pessimistic mental atti tude. Pessimists are always knockers, andknockers are destroyers, not builders . TheOptimist is the builder, the one who holds theright spirit, the mental attitude that improvesconditions and attracts sympathy and helpfulness from others .If your work or your environment is distasteful

,begin at once to change it by fitting

yourself for a better position or a highersphere . Antagonizing, worrying, faultfindi ng will only make things worse, may driveyou from that which you feel 1s beneath you ,

MAKING LIFE A SONG 3 7

to a still lower‘

strata of work, a poorer, moreuncongenial environment .To go through life fretting, fuming, knocking your environment,

‘

your neighbors, yourwork

,is to drive away the very things you

want to attract . The way to change conditions is to make fr i ends with them . The nonresistance philosophy helps you to economizeyour life forces, to store reserve energies, i nstead Of dissipating them . It helps you to dothe thing you want to do . It Is working withGod instead of against H im. It i s recogn i z

ing Him in your affairs .I recently came across the following linessomewhere, and they made a strong impressionOI! me :

I am not fighting my fight,I am singing my song.”

They express all the diff erence between thosewho have soured on life, who are always complaining of their lot, and look upon their workas hateful drudgery, and those who, whateverhappens

,Sing their song, look upon life with

a cheerful eye and find j oy in their j ob .

The Optimist makes life poetry, a song, the

38 LOVE’ S WAY

pessimist, with the. same material, makes it dry,dreary prose .What we get out of life depends upon howwe look at it . Our mental attitude determineswhether we shall be happy or miserable,whether we make life music or discord .

Some people have a faculty for touchingthe wrong keys ; from the finest instrumentthey extract only discord . They sound thenote of pessimism everywhere . All their songsare in a minor key. Everything is lookingdown . The Shadows predominate in all theirpictures . There is nothing bright, cheerful orbeautiful about them. Their outlook is alwaysgloomy ; times are always hard and moneytight . Everything in them seems to be contracting ; nothing growing or expanding i ntheir lives .With others it i s just the reverse. Theycast no Shadows . They radiate sunshine .Every bud they touch opens its petals andfl i ngs out its fragrance and beauty. Theynever approach you but to cheer ; they neverSpeak to you but to inspire . They scatterflowers wherever they go . They have thathappy alchemywh i ch turns prose into poetry,

MAKING LIFE A SONG 9

ugliness to beauty, discord to melody. They

see the best in people and say pleasant and

helpful things about them.

One man will put his very soul into themost unattractive calling and not only lift it

to dignity, but by i n fusmg into it the soul of

an artist, make it radiant with beauty, whileanother will degrade the loftiest an d most

dignified vocation into drudgery, and make the

grandest profession seem undesirable .Some women shed such a radiance of goodcheer, comfort and beauty through the hum

blest homes,homes with bare floors and p i e

tureless walls, that they are transformed intopalaces . They radiate a light

'

through thepoverty of their surroundi ngs that never was

on sea or land . They radiate the sweetnessof love

,which transforms and beauti fies the

humblest and homeliest surroundings, whileother women cannot make an attractive homewith a million dollars . In the midst of theirexpensive tapestry and costly works of

i

art

there is an inharmoniousness, a lack of thatbrightness and cheerfulness which come froman exquisite taste , born of a sense of the fit

40 LOVE’ S WAY

ness of things, and a heart that beats warmwith helpfulness and love .If the heart is right we can make the mosttrifling thing, the Simplest act or duty beautiful, but if the heart is not right, nothing inthe life will be true, or fine, or uplifting.

The one who faces life the right way, whois cheerful

,hopeful, always expecting the best

to come to him because he believes in thefatherhood of God

,from whom all .good things

come, will increase his ability tremendously.

His mental attitude will call out resourceswhich the calamity howler, the pessimist loses,because. his mental attitude closes his natureinstead of opening it up . He negatives hismind, and hence greatly lessens his productivepower. If we would only cultivate the optimistic spirit

,the hopeful way of looking at

things that should be natural to the childrenof an all-powerful Father, we could increaseour efficiency a hundred per cent , and alsoreduce to a minimum the disagreeable thingsof life.

Half of our troubles and trials come fromour gloomy outlook, from anticipating evilinstead of good . Nine-tenths of the people

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42 LOVE’ S WAY

afraid my boy, who 1s away at school, is goingto the bad . I ’m afraid we ’re going to havetrouble with all the children.

”

I lunched with h1m the same day, and thefirst thing he said when we sat down was “I ’mafraid to eat these things . I ’ve got dyspepsIa .

In fact , I have gotten so I’m afraid to eat al

most anything, and so he went on fearingsomething all through the meal . He musthave said “I ’m afraid at least twenty—fivetimes in my hearing that day.

There is scarcely a human being who doesn’tuse this or some other pessimistic expressiontwo or three, perhaps many more, times a day.

Few of us realize that every time we say “I ’mafraid” we are confessing a lack of faith inourselves, and thereby weakening our faithin our ability to stand up against the thin gwe fear . Every time we say we are afraid ofpoverty, afraid of disease, afraid of conditions,afraid of this or afraid of that, we are undermmi ng our confidence in ourselves, underm i n i ng our disease-resisting power . We are

Introducing a poison into our minds that willreact on our health and efficiency.

Let us quit doing the things which we know

MAKING LIFE A SONG 43

injure us . Let us have done with fear, withpessimism, with the pessimist who seems tothink that the pathway of human life alwaysleads to the jungle ! Let us look at life fromthe viewpoint of the opt imist, who believes thatit leads to the Paradise of the Promised Land .

Let us recogni ze God in all our affairs, andsay,

I am not fighting my fight,I am Singing my song.”

TH E DREAM OF BROTHERHOOD

IN ancient Rome the matrons used to taketheir sewing to the Colosseum, and Si t thereand gossip while the Christian martyrs werethrown into the arena to battle for their liveswith wild beasts, kept without food for many

days to increase their ferocity.

!Children were also taken to witness those

awful spectacles, and would clap their handsdelightedly while their mothers looked on withequal enj oyment at the writhing agonies ofthe Christians, as they were torn to pieces bythe wild beasts .Nero used to have the lake in front of hisgolden palace lighted up with torches madeof Christians covered with tar. It was acommon practice to expose in desert placescr i ppled or sickly infants to die of starvationor to be devoured by wild animals . The old,who had become useless for active service, weretreated in the same way.

44

THE DREAM OF BROTHERHOOD

With all the might of the great Roman empire pitted against them, the Christians persisted in acclaiming their gospel of love, incarrying on the work of the Christ . An d be

hold, i n spite of persecution, in spite of tor

ture and death, slowly, but surely, the leavenof the Christ teaching worked until that sameold pagan Rome became later the center ofChristianity. It is full to-day of its most precions monuments .But what of the persecutions in the nameof Chr istianity ! What of the horrors of theworld war ! Of the unutterable barbaritiesand atrocities that are being perpetrated byso-called Christians ! The answer is that

,Side

by Side with all the evils of war, the leavenof love is still workin g.

One who has been on the European battlefields says,

“You will see hell wide open on thebattlefield, but you will see heaven likewise .Such heroism, such patience, self-devotion,cheerfulness under affliction, readiness to flinglife away to save a comrade

,surely these mean

more, are worth more, than the immediate oh

jects of their exercise . Another says,

“TrueChristianity is being exhibited on the battle

46 LOVE’S WAY

field in a most marvelous way. Love is working there .”

Although we are in the midst of the mostfrightful war in history, yet there are multitudes of signs of the reign of love . We see themost selfless love animating the great armyof Red Cross surgeons and nurses, who, re

gardless of creed or country, racial or socialdifferences, are treating all the wounded soldiers on ' the world ’s battlefields as brothers ,binding up their wounds and nursing themback to health and life .Many a time has

-

i t happened that soldiersof different nations who were bitter enemiesin battle and tried in every way to kill eachother

,have found while convalescing side by

Side under the care of Red Cross nurses thatthey were really one in sympathy and feeling,brothers at heart and

‘

did not know it . R e

moved from the atmosphere of hate and discord these men have become fast friends andlearned to feel their brotherhood .

Pessimists see in the war only the overturning of civilization and the letting loose of allthe demons of hate . But love is stronger thanhate and will bring life out of death . Even

THE DREAM OF BROTH ERHOOD

on the battlefields it is sowing the seeds of a

great new life that will transcend anything theworld has seen before .Never before i n history has the motto ofthe French Revolution,

“Liberty, Equality,and Fraterni ty” come into more universal usethan since the war began . The great calamityhas leveled all class and party distinctions .The sharp social, politi cal and religious lineswhich were drawn so tightly in the warringcountries before the war cloud burst have inmany instances disappeared. The people havebeen drawn together by the needs of a common cause . Men and women of all classes,ambitions and creeds, work together for theone great end. In France, women of the oldnoblesse have taken into their homes the destitute wives and children of private soldiers,and are treating them

'

as brothers and Sisters .Highbred ladies have gone into the shops asclerks, as waiters i n hotels and restaurants,and as drivers of busses and automob i les .Women who had not known work before havecheerfully taken up the tasks dropped by theirmen when they answered their country’s callto arms The same i s true i n England, i n

48 LOVE’ S WAY

America, and all the other countries in volvedin the war.The barr i ers leveled by love, by the greatspirit of human brotherhood, will never be reestablished; When peace comes the warrin gnations will be re-born on new lines .Seven years ago on July 2 1 , 19 1 1 , the fif

ti eth anniversary of the battle of Bull Run,there was enacted in our own country a memorable scene . On that day the remnants of thearmies of the blue and the gray met and buriedforever the last Shred of sectional feeling thatshadowed the relations of the North and theSouth . The veterans formed in battle array, says a writer,

“and marched up Henry'

Hill toward one another, repeatingthe movement of the battle fifty years ago . When thetwo long lines met they halted and claspedhands . A mighty cheer went up , and manyof the grizzled old soldiers wept.”

It may take some time to heal the hurts andto blot out the memory of the cruel wrongscommitted in this great war, but the day i scoming when all the nations of the earth willclasp hands in brotherhood and work togetherfor the uni versal good. Love will take the

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'5 0 LOVE’S WAY

misery,and to apply the remedies and also to

find the influences that should best counteract

evil and its attending suff ering.

There seemed to be a new, a wondrous,ever-permeating light

,the glory of which I

cannot attempt to put in human words— thelight of new-born hope and sympathy blazing.

The source of this light was human endeavor-immortal purpose of countless thousands ofmen and women, who were equally doing theirpart in the world .

“I saw the men and the women, stand ingside by side, shoulder to shoulder, in a common and indomitable purpose lighting everyface with a glory not of this earth . All wereadvancing with one end in View, one foe totrample, one everlasting good to gain .

“And then I saw the. Victory. All of evi lwas gone from the earth. Misery was blottedout . Mankind was emancipated and ready tomarch forward in a new era of human un

derstandi ng, all-encompassing sympathy andever-present help . The era of perfect love,of peace, passing all understanding.

”

This is the dream of the ages, the hope ofman from the beginning ; and every century,

THE DREAM OF BROTHERHOOD 5 1

every year,brings us nearer to its realization .

In spite of contradictions and many glaringevils in our midst, many setbacks and discouragements, the spirit of the Chr ist, of humanbrotherhood, IS slowly gai ni ng ground andleavening the human mass . The altruisticspirit has made greater headway during thelast twenty-five years than in the previoustwo centuries . This is evident in all the ramificati on s of life . We see it in the greatersympathy and interest which men and womeneverywhere are taking in their less fortunatebrothers and Sisters . In every part of thecivilized world the Sick, the poor, the old, thebruised and suffering, the fallen, the criminal,are receiving more humane treatment

,more

ki ndness than ever before in human history .

Think of the improvement i n the treatmentof the insane alone . It is not so very long agosin ce those unfortunates were treated in themost inhuman manner, chained, flogged andabused in all sorts of ways, as though they hadno claim whatever on our love and sympathy.

The change in our prison system, too, ismost Significant . In olden times criminals

were punished in the most barbarous way

5 2 LOVE’ S WAY

their ears cut off, their eyes burned out withhot pokers, their bodies mutilated with therack and the thumbscrews, their limbs actually pulled apart, and they were often put todeath by slow torture, perhaps lasting for

days .To-day, in many of our prisons, the ki ndly,considerate treatment that is being substitutedfor the old cruel system of “an eye for an eye

,

a tooth for a tooth” is really helping to reformcriminals, to make them useful citizens again .

The old system killed men, broke their spirit,or made them more hardened in crime . Itrarely, if ever, reformed . The new system i sgiving them a chance to make good again.

Love is Showing us how to treat crime as

Christ treated sin, as a disease to be cured bythe love balm instead of brutal treatment.Love will ultimately banish not only the oldcruel prison-methods, but the criminal himself. For when the world is run on theGolden Rule plan, the temptation to crime willbe largely eliminated and crime will die a

natural death .

The i njustice and inequalities that persistamong us

,fostered by individual greed for

THE DREAM OF BROTHERHOOD 5 3

wealth and power, are responsible for muchof the crime and misery of society. When justice rules and every man has an equal opportun i ty with his brother man, schools and socialcenters will supplant prisons and poorhouses .The hOpe of the future of mankind is in theuniversal practice of the Golden Rule . Theone brief season in the year when an attempti s most generally made to put it in practicegives us some idea of what a world run on theGolden Rule plan would be .Along about Christmas time we notice that,with few exceptions, the stingiest, meanestcharacters, the most selfish and close-fisted,moved by the atmosphere of “good will tomen” tend to feel generous impulses . Thoughthey may use all their ingenuity and cunningto get the advantage of one another and makethe best bargain for themselves ; though theymay be cold-blooded, selfish, and indifferentto the sufferings and hardships of others therest of the year, for one day they becomehelpful, kindly, magnan i mous . Their pocketbooks, which they guarded so j ealously yesterday, they open i n the service of their fellowmen for this day. On Christmas Day the

5 4 LOVE’ S WAY

hearts that were dead live again . The worldcomes nearer to happiness than in all the otherthree hundred and sixty-four days .Why ! Because we realize the dream ofbrotherhood.

What a tremendous forward stride weshould take if the Christmas spirit of brotherhood could be perpetuated throughout theyear ! If each one of us Should elect to do untoothers as he would have others do unto him,

the dream would be quickly realized .

DRIVING AWAY WHAT WE LONG FOR M OST

IN an address over the grave of a little child,Robert G. Ingersoll said : “I had rather liveand love where death is king than have eternallife where love is not . Another life is naught,un less we know and love the ones who loveus here.”

The most beautiful thing on thi s earth, thatwhich every human being craves most is love .The mere suggestion of life without it is unthinkable, for life is love . Where love is notthere is no life . There is only its semblance .The saddest situation in life, one in whichmost of us would be tempted to play thecoward, is the feeling that nobody cares whatbecomes of us, whether we win or lose in thegreat life game .As long as there is some one who cares, the

motive is not all gone . No matter how desperate or hopeless our outlook

,the feelin g that

somebody cares, that some one would miss us,55

5 6 LOVE’ S WAY

that there is somebody who beli eves i n us

a wife, a mother, a child, a friend, even a dumbanimal— enables us to struggle on . But tofeel that we are absolutely alone, friendless,that nobody cares whether we go up or downin the world, win or lose, whether we live ordie, 18 tragic . Under such conditions, it requires stern stuff to try still to do on e’s best .If it be that there is any human being soforlorn, he must have Shut love out of hisheart . H e must have given up trying to loveor to be loved . He must have stifled the loveinstinct implanted by the Creator in everyliving creature . Something has twisted hisnature . He is not normal ; for God made usfor love— to love and be loved.

Some time ago I had a letter from a manwho said he had soured on love, that he neverwanted to hear the word again, or to see it i n

prmt. In his reading he avoided the subj ectof love . If he came across anything about ithe would skip it . He vowed he would neverhave anything more to do with love. He wasdone with it forever .He did not say what had caused this revulsion against love . Perhaps he had been j ilted

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5 8 LOVE’ S WAY

indicators of our own disposition, our owncharacter. If we arouse suspicion, distrust,j ealousy, envy, these qualities must exist tosome extent in ourselves . Like attracts like .We call out of others that which correspondsto our mental attitude toward them

,our

treatment of them.

Many people who are famishing for love,whose greatest disappointment is that theirlove instinct is not satisfied, make it impossible for love to burn in their hearts

,because

there is so little there that goes with love . A.

heart full of bitterness, of envy and j ealousy,of greed, of cold selfishness, an overleapingambition for place, fame, power, is no dwellingplace for love . Love could not dwell in suchan atmosphere . It would be chilled to death .

Most of us by our wrong mental attitudedrive away the very things we long for andstruggle to attain . Every normal being longsfor love

,and yet how many are constantly

driving i t from them by their mental attitudeand their unlovely ways .A mother who all her life has been hungryfor love is alienating her children by the exac

tion s of an unfortunate temperament . She

WHAT WE LONG FOR MOST 9

makes the home so uncomfortable by her hard,critical, faultfin di ng spirit and her disagreeable disposition that her children are neverhappy there . They are always glad to getaway from it and from their mother . Nothingthey do pleases her . She is continually findingfault with their conduct, their dress, their manners, their habits . They never get a word of

!praise or commendation from her, n o matterhow hard they strive for it . The result is thatShe is driving what love they have for her outof their hearts .True love is never exacting, or faultfindi ng.

It cannot be unkind or querulous . If you wantto be loved you must stop barking at the badin others and look for the good . You willalways find what you look for .

“In the heart of Africa, among the greatlakes,

” says Drummond,“I have come across

black men and women who remembered theonly white man they ever saw before—DavidLivingstone ; and, as you cross his footsteps inthat dark continent, men

’s faces light up as

they speak of the kind doctor who passed thereyears ago . They could not understand him ;but they felt the love that beat in his heart.”

60 LOVE’ S WAY

Down i n Kentucky, on the outskirts of alittle back town, in a sassafras thicket, isa roughly hewn stone, overgrown with wildvines . Carved on the stone are these words :“Jane Laler . Ded Agus 1 849 . She wuz alluskin’ to everybudd i e.

On the other Side of the Atlantic Ocean,in

the great city of London, is another monument to one who had been kind to everybody.

It is a very different sort of monument to therough stone in the Kentucky town, but thesentiment that prompted it is the same . OverLord Shaftesbury

’

s body in Westminster Abbey are carved two words—“

Love ; Service .”

Not because of his wealth, his rank, his i ntellect and great statesman-like gifts, does thisman hold an assured place in the hearts of hiscountrymen ; no, what endears him to all ranksi s that unselfish love

\

Wh ich prompted him to

give his life to the service of his fellow-man.

Love is the golden key with which all heartsare Opened . It is the magic door throughwhich we must pass to the hearts of our fellowmen as well as to success in work and life.E ven the best service without love lacks thatwhich makes i t divine. “We love them first,

”

WHAT WE LONG FOR MOST 61

said a member of the Salvation Army in an

swer to my question as to what their first stepwas in endeavoring to reclaim the poor outcasts whom they rescue from the streets . Thisis the secret of the marvelous growth of theSalvation Army.

Into everything you do you must put thismighty, vivifying force, or you will not succeed on the highest plane . You may go in tothe Slums of a large city, or out into the highways and byways, through a sense of duty, orbecause you are a church member, and do notwish to appear behind others, or for some otherreason, to relieve the necessities of the poor,to instruct the ignorant and lead them to akn owledge of better things ; but if you do notlove the work, do not love the people you aretryi ng to help , your efforts will be futile .If we want to flood our lives with sunshineand love we must be real men and women ;and to be real men and women there are somethings besides getting a living which we mustdo . Whatever our vocations we must make abusiness of humanity. There are many linesof this great business which we can carry onas side lines with our vocations, Such as the

62 LOVE’ S WAY

cheering-up line, the encouraging line, thelend-a-hand line .It will cost us nothing to scatter our flowersas we go along, and we shall never go over justthe same road again . No matter how limitedour means we can give a smile and a word ofcheer to those who minister to our comforts,who help us in our dai ly work— the newsboy,the car conductor, the waiter, the clerk, theporter on the train, those who serve us in ourhome. Kind words , a smile, a bit of en couragemen t or i n sp1rati on may seem but littlethings, of no account to many of us, yet theymay be worth everythmg to some lonely or discouraged soul famishing for sympathy andencouragement .A few words of loving sympathy from a

stranger encouraged a young English lad topursue his studies and become a famousauthor .

“He is the. most stupid boy in school . Ican’t drive anything into his head,

” said histeacher to a Visitor to the school this lad wasattending. The visitor made a little talk to thescholars and then passed into another room.

In leaving the school, however, he made an

WHAT WE LONG FOR MOST 63

opportun ity to speak to the so-called stupidboy. Patting him on the head, he said, Nevermind, my boy, you may be a great scholarsome day. Do not be discouraged, but tryhard, and keep on trying.

”

The boy had been told so often that he wasa stupid good- for-nothing that he began tothink it was true . But the words of the greatman who had spoken so encouragingly to himset his ambition aflame and filled him with anew hope . They kept ringing in his ears, andhe said to himself,

“I will Show my teacher andothers who have so long regarded me as astupid good-for—nothing that there is somethin g i n me. The boy became the famousDr . Adam Clark, author of the great Commentary on the Bible and other importantworks .It is the easiest thing in the world to senda little sun shine into other lives, to radiategood cheer, kindliness wherever we go . Op

portun i ti es for this are never lacki ng, and theopportunities let Slip to-day will never comeback again . But the writing a kindly letter

,

the dropping a cheering word, the little kindnesses by the wayside, will come back to us

64 LOVE’S WAY

in a thousand ways and give enduring satisfaction.

“Human beings, says Ruskin, owe a debtof love to one another, because there is noother method of paying the debt of love andcare which all of us owe to Providence.

” Inother words, the habit of passing along thegood things that come to us, giving out thewords of good cheer, giving the glad hand,the glad heart, saying the helpful word, i s aservice to the God who sent us here as wellas to our neighbor And these little officesand services which we can perform every daywithout interference with our regular workwill play a greater part in our happiness andsatisfaction than the money that we earn or

we receive from others .

It i s in giving, not in seeking giftsWe find our quest.”

Says a writer : If my love halts, my lifelimps . If I hate, I am wounded out of life .Only as I love with love universal, excludingnone

, can the Love Universal eternally makeits beauties in me and through me laugh out

i ts holiest j oys .”

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EM PLOYERS AND EM PLOYEES

A M ANAGER of large manufacturing interests, who had a reputation for squeezing anenormous amount of work out of the em

ployees under him, in expla imng to his boardof directors how he got results said : “I tellyer I can squeeze the work out of ’em. I justgrind it right out of ’em . That’s the only wayto make these factorles pay big dividends, justto grmd results out of employees, and I keep’em guessing. I keep right after ’em. Theynever knowwhen I am coming and they allfear me. I keep ’em on the very verge of discharge. They never know when they are goi ng to get the yellow

-

envelope .”

This man, who boasted of coining flesh andblood into big dividends employed thousandsof women and children in his factories . Manyof the women were

,of course, very poor,

mothers with large families,who were obliged

after long hours in the factory to do the family

cooking, washing and mending, all the familfi66

EM PLOYERS AND EM PLOYE ES 67

work. Some of this work was done in themorning before starting the day in the factory at six or seven o ’clock, the rest when theyreturned late at night .I was talking recently with a cold-blooded,overbearing, browbeating business man ofthis type who told me that he was going outof business because he was so tired

”

and sickof incompetent, dishonest help His em

ployees, he said, were always taking advan

tage of him— stealing, spoili ng merchandise,blundering, shirking, clipping their hours .They took no interest in his welfare

,their only

concern being in what they found in their payenvelope . “I have enough to live on, he concluded,

“and I don’t propose to run a businessfor their benefit . I have tried every meansI know of to get good work out of ignorant

,

selfish help, but it is no use, and now I havedone with it . My nervous system is worn outand I must give up the game .”

“You say you have tried everything youcould thin k of in managing your employees

,

but has i t ever occurred to you to try love’s

way ! ” I asked.

“Love ’s way ! he said di sgustedly. What

68 LOVE’ S WAY

do you mean by that ! Why, if I didn’t use

a club all the time my help would ride rightover me and ruin me . For years I have hadto employ detectives and spies to protect myinterests . What do these people kn ow aboutlove ! Why I Should have the red flag out herein no time if I Should attempt any such foolbusiness as thatA young man who had been successful inemploying Golden Rule methods in businessmanagement hearing of the situation saw in ita possible opening, and asked this man to givehim a trial as manager before g1v1ng up hisbusiness altogether . The result was the disgruntled business man was so pleased with theyoung man’s personality that in less than halfan hour he had engaged him as a manager,although he still insisted that it was a verydoubtful experiment .The first thing the new man did on takingcharge was to call the employees in each de

partment together and have a heart-to-hearttalk with them . He told them that he hadcome there not only as a friend of the pro

pri etor, but as their friend also, and that hewould do everything in his power to advance

EM PLOYERS AND EM PLOYEES 69

their interests as well as those of the business .The house, he told them, had been losingmoney, and it was up to him and them tochange all that and put the balance on theright Side of the ledger . He made them seethat harmony and coOperati on are the bas1s ofany real success for a concern and its em

ployees.

From the start he was cheerful , hopeful,sympathetic

,enthusiastic, encouraging. He

quickly won the confidence and good-will ofeverybody in the establishment, and had themall working as heartily for the success of thebusiness as if it were their own . The placewas like a great beehive, where all were i ndustri ous, happy, contented, working for thehive . So great was the change that customersbegan to talk about the new Spirit in the house .Business grew and prospered, and in an i ncredibly short time, the concern was makinginstead of losing money.

The Golden Rule method had driven outhate, selfishness, greed and dissension . Theinterests of all were centered on the generalwelfare, and so all prospered . When the pro

pri etor returned from abroad, whither he had

7 0 tLOVE’

S WAY

gone for a few months’ rest and recuperation,

he could scarcely believe in the reality of thetransformation that “love ’s way” had effectedin his old employees and in the entire establi shmen t.

Some men will make good employees out ofalmost any kind of people . They pick up boyson the street, they take criminals released fromprison

,as Henry Ford is doing, and develop

them into Splendi d'

men . They have the faculty of calling out the best in them, appealingto their manliness, their sense of fairness, ofjustice

,in doing as they would be done by

“Do unto others as you would that othersShould do unto you .

” All the philosophy ofthe ages is concentrated in this Single sentence .It embodies the essential element in practicalChristianity. All law lives in it, the principleof all reform . - Its practice will ultimatelyswallow up all greed, and the time will comewhen every man will see that his own bestgood is in the highest good of everybody abouthim. The time will come when even m thebusiness world the Golden Rule will be foundby all to be the wi sest and most businesslike

policy.

EM PLOYERS AND EM PLOYEES 7 1

Mr. H . Gordon Selfridge thinks that thelabor problem would solve itself if employers

treated their employees as they would like

to be treated themselves, or as they would like

to have their children treated . He says that

the keeping these points in mind constitutesseventy-five per cent . of the secret of

”

the suc

cess of his great department store in London,which, in the third year of his business there,made a profit of half a million dollars . Yetwhen he started his enterprise the best business men in London predi cted that it would

be a complete failure. Conservative peoplesaid : “He ’ll be broke within a year . It can’tbe done . We don’t like this kind of pushingbusiness over here . But by proj ecting the

progressive spirit of Americanism into hisbusiness methods in the heart of London

,

where for centuries men had done business as

their fathers and grandfathers and their re

mote ancestors had done, and by humanekindly treatment of his employees

,he smashed

old traditions and broke all business records .I have found the English employees ex

ceedi ngly satisfactory to work with,” said Mr.

72 LOVE’ S WAY

Selfridge . They are not clockwatchers andthey have been loyal .”

There are few employees who would not besatisfactory and “loyal” if treated according to this great merchant ’s plan of campaign,which he sums up thus :

“Pay your employees decent living wages,and don’t make them afraid of you . A smileand a pleasant word go a mighty long way .

Instil into them a feeling of responsibility,

make them feel that they are a necessary unit,

a wheel, if only a small one, but a necessarywheel in the large system of the store . Inshort, treat them as you would wish to betreated yourself, or as you would like to seeyour children treated .

”

Henry Ford, John Wanamaker, Charles M .

Schwab and others of our most prom i nent andsuccessful merchants and manufacturers owetheir success and their popularity with theiremployees to the same sort of business methodswhich won H . Gordon Selfridge. his greatLondon success .Mr . Schwab told me recently that he is having wonderful results from his profit-sharingpolicy. He says that before any dividends are

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LOVE’S WAY

tainty what business we Shall do the comingyear. We know the capacity of our plantand we know what the profits will be . Tenmillions of dollars of these anticipated profitswill go to the men who work by the day . Theyare not to get this with an

‘ if’ attached to it .They are to get their share every two weeks .We can do that because they are going to aidus

”

in making the profits“Of course we, the members of the com

pany, will derive a benefit from their betterwork, but even if we do not make an increased

profit in dollars and cents we would have thesatisfaction of making twenty thousand men

prosperous and contented, rather than makinga few Slave-drivers in our plant millionaires .That is love ’s way in business . An d it pays

royally, not only 1n \maki ng better men andbetter workers, but also in making profits .Andrew Carnegi e says that if he were tostart in the steel business again he would adoptthe profit-sharing plan with all of his em

ployees, thus making them feel that they werereally partners instead of employees .The employer who can make his employeesfeel that they are virtually partners i n the

E M PLOYERS AND E M PLOYEE S 5

business instead of merely working for a salaryis calli ng out of his employees a quality ofwork which can never be brought out in anyother way. Really up

-to-date,efficient busi

ness men know that the Slave-driving, bulldozing, domineering methods, the nagging,suspicious

, faultfin di ng methods do not bring

the desired results . All business men are finding that a one-Sided bargain, whether with customer or employee, is a bad bargain .

Good fellowship between employers and em

ployees is the very foundation of successfulbusiness management, and good fellowshipcannot exist where there is injustice

,bullyin g

and constant faultfindi ng, or a spirit of superi ori ty on the part of employers, where theemployees do n ot have fair treatment and aremade to feel that they are dependents of theemployer.It is human nature to resent unfairness

, to

resent being patronized, to resent injustice .Good fellowship means team work

,and per

fect team work is impossible where either em

ployee or employer i s di ssatisfied, where thereis a feeling of resentment or i ll will. Good

76 LOVE’S WAY

fellowship between employer and employed i sone of the greatest assets in business .This good fellowship or good-will spirit isone of the most noticeable features of the JohnWanamaker stores . Mr . Wanamaker ’s em

ployees have been heard to say,“We can work

better for a week after a pleasant ‘Good morning’ from Mr . Wanamaker.” His kindly disposition and cheerful manner, and his desire tocreate a pleasant feeling and diffuse goodcheer among those who work for him have hada great deal to do with this merchant’s re

markable success .Another big employer who has a thousandemployees in his factory r ecently said to avisitor : “I want you to take a walk throughthe place with me and see if you can find asullen or d i scon ten ted f face. I know everyoneof my employees by their first name and theyall know me . If anyone has a grievance, heor she can find their way to my office and noone can keep them out, and they know thatthey will get justice . I consider myself responsible for the moral and physical well-being of every girl in the place from the momentshe enters in the morning until She leaves in

E M PLOYERS AND E M PLOYEES 7

the evening. I not only want my girls to becontented while they are working, but I wantthem to go home that way an d arrive that wayin the morning. You don’t see any of thesegirls speeding up and looking unusually busywhen I come round . They know that I amnot that kind of man . When business is slowI tell them to let up and take their time because we wi ll have to work very hard in December. The result is that without a wordfrom me they will turn out three t imes as

much work in December as they do in April.“My employees give me the kind of workthat mere wages cannot buy . They are honest with me because I am honest with them,

and they are honest with each other . A manfound twenty-eight dollars on the floor in oneof the rooms one day. I advertised throughthe factory that money had been found andthere was only one claimant out of a thousandof employees, and he was the boy who lost it .Aside from the money-making interest I havein my concern, a decent man feels proud toknow that there is that kind of a spirit amongthose who work for him .

”

I know a New York business man who has

78 LOVE’ S WAY

won the love and respect of every employeein his large establishment by the use of similarmethods . He says that if he notices a sad,sour, discontented face anywhere in his establi shment

“

he calls the owner of it into his private office and says : “Look here, you are nothappy ; there is something wrong. Now, befrank with me and tell me what the troubleis .” The disgruntled employee then tells whatthe trouble is . Perhaps some other employeeis abusing him ; perhaps someone over him isnot treating him ri ght . Whatever the complaint the employer sends for the other personimplicated . Then they talk the matter overtogether ; it is usually adjusted easily, and theemployer sends both employees away happy .

This is the only way to get the best out ofemployees

,to make th em happy and contented

in their work, by kindness and sympathy andfair and honorable treatment in all respects .There is something seriously lacking in an em

ployee who will not respond to such treatment,and he will pay the price for it as did thatdishonest builder

,

“a foolish eye-servant, apoor rogue

,

” of whom Edwin Markham tells

this story .

EM PLOYERS AND EM PLOYEES 79

He and his little ones were wretched androofless

,whereupon a certain good Samaritan

said,in his heart,

‘ I will surprise this man withthe gift of a comfortable home . ’ So, withouttelling his purpose, he hired the builder at fairwages to build a house on a sunny hill, andthen he went on business to a far country.

“The builder was left at work with nowatchman but his own honor. ‘Ha !’ said heto his heart

,

‘ I can cheat this man . I cankimp the material and scamp the work .

’ Sohe went on Spinning out the time, putting inpoor service

,poor nails, poor timbers .

“When the good Samaritan returned, thebuilder said : ‘That is a fine house I bui lt youon the hill . ’ ‘Good,

’ was the reply ;‘Go, move

your folks into it at once, for the house i syours . Here is the deed.

’

“The man was thunderstruck. He saw that,instead of cheating his friend for a year, hehad been industriously cheat i ng himself. ‘ IfI had only known it was my own house I wasbuilding ! ’ he kept muttering to himself.I know a young man who is acting like thisunfaithful servant, who also doesn

’t know thathe i s cheating h imself. For several years he

80 LOVE’ S WAY

has been clipping hi s office hours, going to hi swork late in the morning, remaining away for

half a day or more at a time under all sorts

of pretextsm i lhi ess, or pretended blocks on thestreet-cars, and yet he thinks he has a gri evance because he is not advanced more rapidly.

He tells me that his salary h as not been ad

van ced for years, and that he sees no chancefor promotion . He complains that many of

hi s fellow workers with less ability have beenpromoted many t imes while he has remainedstationary.

This “foolish eye-servant seems to thinkthat his employer is blind, and that he has beenable to pull the wool over his eyes for yearswithout arousing even a suspicion of his back

slidings . He brags Ot is ability, but he hasn’t

intelligence enough to see that the same quali

ties which have put his employer at the headof a large business enable him to read the character of his employees, to know those who arefaithfully and loyally serving his interests,and those who are backsliding and servingonly their own ease and pleasure . In the longrun this young man and all employees of hi s

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82 LOVE’ S WAY

weak men, instead of the strong, grand, com

plete men they might be .There is another class of employees who bytheir disloyalty, both in and out of the office,factory or sh0 p—wherever they are employed—i n constantly “knocking the ir employers,hurt themselves as much as the shirkers . Iknow one of those knockers who is alwayssneering at his employer

,criticizing his meth

ods and making slurring or insulting remarksabout him . It is positively painful to hear thisyoung man’s querulous complaints and bittercriticisms of his “boss .”

It always pains me to hear employees knocking the employer an d the concern they areworking for, criticizing their methods, turningup their noses at their policy. Apart from thelack of good-will, of sympathy in their attitude, i t shows lack of prmci ple and great weakness of character . If you do not like the people you are working for ; if their methods areunfair, dishonest ; if your conscience does notapprove them, then you Should leave them i nstead of finding fault and criticizing. Youshould get another j ob . Whatever the causemay be, the habit of knocking is very injurious

EM PLOYERS AND EM PLOYEES 83

to the knocker. It keeps the mind embittered, and tends to kill creative power. Noone can do his best work while he nurses bittern ess in his heart toward anyone .There is yet another class of employees whoare so thin- Skinned and sensitive that they cannot stand any criticism or correction from em

ployers, even though it be for their own good .

A young man of this type threw up his j obrecently because, as he put it, he couldn

’tstand the gaff.” His manager, he said, wasalways criticizing his work

,constantly prod

ding him for not doing better, and so he gottired of it and quit .To be too thin—Skinned or sensitive is alsoto be weak, and it will not pay either in business or in social life . If the climbing instinctis sufficiently strong in you, if you are determined to get on and up in the world

,if you

have backbone, you won’t be afraid of a little

criticism or correction, especially when it is i ntended for your improvement .There are some employees that the meanestemployers cannot find fault with, because theirwork is always carefully

,conscientiously, and

painstakingly done . An d if your employer i s

84 LOVE’ S WAY

always scolding you and criticizingyour work,you will find

,if you examine yourself care

fully,that there is a reason for it . If you are

honest with yourself you w ill probably fin dthat to attribute all of it to his meanness, to hisunfortunate disposition or bad temper, i s Simply covering up the real reason and deceivingyourself.But in the final equation the burden of responsibility for making a good or a bad em

ployee rests largely with the employer, for wecall out of others the qualities we appeal to .Whatever we awaken in another’s nature hasan affinity for the influence which awakened it.A magnet run through a pile of rubbish willdraw out only nails, tacks, screws, or whateverhas an affinity for it . We draw out of em

ployees or others just the qualities which correspond with our moods, our motives, and ourmanner toward them. Every manager, everyemployer, is a magnet which calls certai nthings out of employees . Some men nevertouch the best in their employees

,never arouse

their best qualities, because the methods theyuse are n ot calculated to do so . Their character is expressed in their methods, and they

EM PLOYERS AND EM PLOYEES 5

appeal to the lowest, instead of the highest,in human nature.It i s astonishing how quickly the qualitiesof the head of a concern will trickle clear downto every employee on hi s force, so that theywill take on his characteristics . If he has highideals, if he is refined and cultivated, they willtend to reflect his ideals, his refinement, hisculture . If he is low, coarse, animal in histastes, in his instincts, he will draw out allthat is worst in his employees .I tell you, my friend employer, it is give andtake in this world . Action and reaction areequal. We get what we give . I have heardemployers say : “What ’s the use in wastingyour sympathy in trying to help employees ;they don’t appreciate it ; they are a lot of cattle . Now if you hold that sort of attitudetoward those who are making your success possible, you will always have a troublesome laborproblem. Your employees are your brothersand sisters, and until you regard them as such,and treat them as such, you are going to bein hot water, and they are going to stint theirservi ces . It is only human nature that theywill try to get all they can out of you as

86 LOVE’ S WAY

long as you are playing the same game withthem.

The intelligent business world, generally,and many of our housewives, are beginning tofind that a pooling of interests, mutual respect,sympathy

,kindness and consideration between

employer and employee, in Short, the practi ceof love’s way, is the on e only and infalliblesolution of labor problems and difficulties .

VIII

SPITE FENCES

AFTER an ugly scar had been made by thestone quarry in the moun tamsi de oppositeRuskin’s home, destroying the beauty of hisfavorite landscape, he used to place a big chairi n front of the window where he had been ac

customed to command a beautiful View of lakeand mountain so that it would conceal the scarfrom him while working, because it disturbedthe harmony of his thought.If you have received an ugly scar from someone perhaps whom you trusted and believedin ; if you have a sore spot, a tender spot anywhere that mars your happiness, don

’t aggravate your pain by looking at it, keeping thesore open by reviewing a painful experienceand cherishing a grudge against the one whoinjured you . Cover your wound with themantle of love instead, forget and forgive theinjury, and your wound will soon heal .

87

88 LOVE’ S WAY

This is what a great singer did in the caseof one who tried to do her a cruel wrong. Thestory is told by T . D eW i tt Talmage in ThePathway of Life”

“When Madame Sontag began her musicalcareer

,She was hissed off the stage at Vienna

by the friends of her rival, Amelia Steininger,who had begun to declme through her dissipation . Years passed on and one day MadameSontag, m her glory, was riding through Berlin, when She saw a child leading a blind woman, and she said :

“Come here, my child.

Who . is that you are leading by the hand ! ’

The child replied : ‘That’s my mother ; that’

s

Amelia Steininger. She used to be a greatsinger, but she lost her voice, and she cried somuch about it that She lost her eyesight . ’ ‘Givemy loVe to her,

’ said Mad ame Sontag,‘ and tell

her an old acquaintance will call on her thisafternoon .

’ The next week, in Berlin, Madame Sontag sang before a vast audience gathered at a benefit for that blind woman. Shetook a skilled oculist to see her, but in vainhe tried to give eyesight to the blind woman .

Until the day of Amelia Stei n i nger’

s death,Madame Sontag took care of her, and her

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90 LOVE’ S WAY

bitter things about him. Finally the employerfailed in business, and in his desperate need,in order to keep his family from want, he applied for a position to the man he had oncedischarged

,who in the meantime had become

prosperous . The man gloated over theirchanged conditions and took great delight in“getting square,

” as he called it, with“the old

man.

” Instead of giving him a helping hand,he gave him what he described as a terribleraking over the coals, told him how he hadhated him for years

‘

for the insult he had putupon him, and that he was really glad to havethe Opportunity of witnessing his painful distress and of turning him down when asking fora favor . He actually rej oiced in the mi sfortune of the man he regarded as his enemy andbragged about his tri umph in at last ! gettingsquare” with him .

N ow, this getting square business proved avery costly one to this man, as it does to everybody who tries it . Hatred had rankled so longin his system that there is no doubt but it hadmuch to do with the failure of his health, forhe suffered frightfully from chronic nervousdyspepsia, and liver and ki dney trouble, as

SPITE FENCES 91’

well as rheumatism . Indeed, hi s physician toldhim it was his mental irritation that caused hi snervous breakdown . He said that the carrying grudges against neighbors, the failure toeradicate the roots of fancied insults, allowinghard thoughts and bitter feelings to fester andulcerate in the nature, lowers one

’

s Vitality,lessens physical resisting power, and tends tophysical and mental deterioration.

A determination to be revenged, to getsquare,

” for real or fancied wrongs, all

grudges, all ill-will, all hatred and malice, areboomerangs which always come back to thethrower, who, in the end, is injured much moreby them than the on e at whom they wereaimed .

The story is told of a man who had oncebeen very poor

,but who after a time had cc

cumulated a fortune . He built h imself a magn ificent mansion, and because he wanted to getsquare with a poorer neighbor with whom hehad had a quarrel on his way up, he built aspite fence

” so high around his mans1on thatit cut much of the light and the sunshine outof the poorer man’s house . It cut off the coolbreezes in the summer, the sun i n the winter,

92 LOVE’S WAY

and made hi s neighbor’s house very un com

fortable. To make the matter worse, therewas an invalid ‘ Sister in. the neighbor’s housewho was tubercular and needed the sun verymuch . The rich man knew this, but so long

as he got square” with the man with whomhe had quarreled he did not care who suffered.

He had not spoken to his neighbor for several years, when one day he saw a hearse i nfront of his door. Instantly the truth flashedupon his mind— that the invalid Sister hadgone, and then he was tortured with the

thought that possibly the cutting Off of thesun and air from that part of the house ’

where

she had lived had hastened her death . He triedin every way to get this idea out of his head

,

saying to himself, How foolish this is ; it i snone of my affair. Theman could have movedthe invalid to some other part of the town .

Her death is not my fault. But the thoughtwould not down, and he resolved to go to theman against whom he had so long cherishedsuch a bitter grudge and tell him that he wouldremove the fence

,if he so desired. But every

time he made up his mind to do this, and hadthe opportunity, something inside of him re

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94 LOVE’S WAY

tiful mansion, for he could not bear the sightof the desolate, empty house opposite, whichwas a perpetual reproach to him .

People who nurse a grudge or bitter resentment, who build spite fences to shut out thelight, the air and the View from their neighbors

,never get any real satisfaction out of

such fiendish conduct ; when too late they realize that they only added fuel to the flame oftheir anger and resentment, and further i ncreased their un happ i ness .In good-will tomen lies the cure for all theevils of society . With good-will to men in ourhearts there is no possibility of cherishing agrudge against a neighbor, of wilfully i n juring another.

\Hatred , ill-will, cannot live aninstant in the presence of the Golden Rule, inthe presence of lovef

x‘

Love melts all prejudices, dissolves all hatreds and jealouS1es, neutrali zes all bitterness . All doors fly open tolove . It has no enemies . It is a welcomeguest everywhere . It needs no introduction .

It introduces itself, and every created thingresponds to it . It has transformed wild beastsinto the dearest and most lovable of pets . Itdrives the brute out of every human being.

SPITE FENCES 95

What a fearful price people pay for theirrevenge— a price which staggers their advancement, kills their efficiency, ruins their happiness, their characters .I have known people to carry for years feelings of bitter hatred and a desire for revenge,a determination to “get square” with thosewho injured them, until their whole characterswere so changed that they became a lmost inhuman. Hatred, revenge, and j ealousy arepoisons just as fatal to all that is noblest inus as arsenic is fatal to the phys i cal life . Andthen think for a moment how unmanly

,how

unwomanly, how despicable it is to be waitingfor an opportunity to injure another, or to“get square” with some one !Robert Browning says : “It is good to forgive, best to forget .

” Many people, however,say of some one who has done them an injury,“I can forgive, but I can never forget .

” Now,

this i s not forgiving, for as long as we holdthe injury done us in mind, we do not forgivefrom our hearts . This is not love ’s way. It isnot God’s way, for He has said to the wrongdoer who repents

,

“Though thy sins be as scarlet they shall be made whiter than snow.

”

96 LOVE’ S WAY

If for any real or fancied wrong you holda grudge against your neighbor, there is abetter way of “getting square” than by building a spite fence . Love’s way i s infinitely better . It will win over your neighbor’s respectand love, and it will have the approval of yourown soul . You have tried the “getting square”

policy, the hatred and grudge method ; youhave tried the revenge way, the j ealousy way ;you have tried the worry, the anxiety method,and these have pained and tortured you all themore . You have tried law and the courts tosettle troubles and difficulties with neighborsand business associates, and perhaps you wonlawsuits only to make bitter, lifelong enemies .But perhaps you have never yet tried love ’sway, excepting in spots . If you have not yettried it as a pri n ci pla

‘

as a life philosophy, asa great life lubricant, begin now. It willsmooth out all the rough places and wonderfully ease your j ourney over the j olts oflife .In proportion as you see the God in yourfriends and in your fellow beings generallywill you call out their divine qualities and yourown, because you appeal to the Godlike in

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98 LOVE’ S WAY

fences for tri fles unworthy of attention. Whata way for men and women with divine possi bi li ties to spend their lives !It i s the Spirit of hate, of selfishness and

greed, that has obsessed those who are responsible for the present awful war. Love has notyet been born in the hearts of those who havebrought this tragedy upon the world . Theydo not kn ow what brotherhood means . The

Sermon on the Mount, the Golden Rule, arestrangers to them. When love Shall be borninto their hearts there will be a new order of

things.Look out for the buried roots of formertroubles, of old grudges, feelings of revenge,excuses for trying to get square ! Root themup , cast them out of your heart and forgetthem, or you will be STIrry. Obey the divinecommand

,

“Love your enemies, and you willhave peace and happiness instead of discordand unhappiness .No more scientific command was ever giventhan “Love your enemies,

” because love i s theantidote for all sorts of grudges, all feelingsof ill-will. You will have no enemi es if youtreat them all as friends, if you do by them

SPITE FENCES 9

as you would have them do by you . There isonly one way to make and to hold enemies, andthat is

,to treat people li ke enemies in your

thought and in your attitude and conducttoward them . You will attract the same kindof thoughts that you give out . Your own willcome back to you

,your attitude toward others

wi ll be practically their attitude toward you .

Hatred cann ot live an in stant i n the presenceof love, any more than fire and water canlive together . The practice of the GoldenRule, obedience to the command,

“Love yourenemies,

” kills revenge, j ealousy, greed, allunkindness . It makes friends and brothers ofenemies .This is as natural as it is scientific. We all

love kindly, magnani mous treatment . It softens hearts and W1pes out ill feeling. Hatredand resentment cannot live in an atmos

phere of friendliness, of helpfulness, of brotherly love . Ninety-nine times out of a hundred a conciliatory attitude would bring yourown to you without contention

,without quar

reling. Practicing love’s way with those wecall our enemies would do away with a large

part of the law business of the world. Very

100 LOVE’ S WAY

few lawyers would have bus1n ess if love’s Wayinstead of law’s way were always practiced bycontestants.

Did you ever realize that by yielding insteadof resi sti ng,by giving in instead of being stubborn, of being a stickler for an apology, youdisarm the resentment and awaken the betternature of the one who has injured you ! Manypeople have thus gained the good-will of onewhom they had regarded as an enemy.

Give in, my friend—this is love’

s way.

Don’t resist, don’t stand out, don

’t be a stickler for the fine points, for the letter of yourrights, but Show yourself big, magnanimous,generous to your foe or fancied enemy. Youwill arouse what is big and generous in him .

He will say to himself,

“Why, I never reali zed that this man was such a good fellow,

that he had such splendid qualities .” He willbe so impressed by your yielding, your

“giving in

,

” when according to custom you had aperfect right to resist, that he will becomeyour friend . He cannot help admiring suchmagnanimity ; he cannot stand off, hold out,after that

,any more than a man you knock

against accidentally on the street can hold hi s

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102 LOVE’ S WAY

others who you think are going to hurt or i nsult you. You cannot afford the fatal rankling of hatred and revenge in your soul . Theyare efficiency killers, happiness destroyers .No one can afford to allow the enemies o f hi shealth his happiness, and hi s efficiency, theenemies of his eternal welfare, to run riot inhis nature, to blur his ideals, mar hi s ambitionand strangle his chances in life .One of the beauties of the New Thoughtand Christian Science philosophy is that ithelps people to eradicate the roots of old troubles, to eliminate the causes o f unhappiness a ndmisery. It enables them to put out of theirminds, to wipe out a bitter, unhappy past, because i t believes thoroughly in the science ofChrist ’s command to love our enemies .Before Christ’s day

\i t was “an eye for an

eye,” an unkindness for an unkindness, a

thrust for a thrust, a blow for a blow ; but H e

taught that we must not stri ke back “Ye haveheard that it hath been said, An eye for aneye

,and a tooth for a tooth ; but I say unto

you,That ye resist not evil ; but whosoever

Shall smite thee on thy ri ght cheek, turn to him

the other also .”

SPITE FENCES 1 03

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thoushalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, blessthem that curse you, do good to them that hateyou, and pray for them which despitefully useyou and persecute you .

” This is as scientificas the laws of chemistry or mathematics .The infant puts his hand in the flame andthe pain he suffers teaches him a bitter lesson .

He knows better than to do it again . Afterwe have had our revenge, after we have tor

tured ourselves.with thoughts which tear and

lacerate us, after we have had experienceenough of this kind, we Shall learn that i t i stoo expensi ve a busi n ess, that we can not af ordto pay such a pri ce for the sake of

“gettingsquare” with another.The next time you are so angry that yourblood boils with indignation and you areready to belch forth the hot lava of your temper like a volcano, just think a moment anddon’t do it . The next time you are in clinedto hold a grudge in your heart against someone you think has injured you

,don’t do it .

You are only putting up a spite fence between

104 LOVE’ S WAY

yourself and your God . There’s an infinitelybetter way of “getting even” than of flying

into a passion or holding a grudge, a gloriousway that will give you peace of min d and i nfinite satisfaction— love ’s way. Try it.Don’t mail that sarcastic, bitter letter whichyou wrote In an angry mood, and which gaveyou a feeling of spiteful satisfaction because

you thought you had done a smart thing andwere going to get square with someone whohad insulted or injured you—burn it . Thereis a better way, love

’s way. Try it .Don’t say the mean thing you have been

planning to say to someone you think has beenmean to you . Instead, give him the lovethought , the magnanimous thought . Say to

yourself “He is my brother. No matter whathe has done, I can

’t be mean to him . I mustShow my friendliness, my magnanimity to thisbrother .In France surgeons are using electric magnets to draw fragments of Shrapnel, bullets,steel particles, etc . , from soldiers

’ wounds . Thelove magnet applied to our enemies, to thosewho have injured us, will draw out the irri

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WORK AND HAPPINESS

H E who loves work gains all the favor ofthe gods,

” says Dr . Frank Crane .Instead of being a curse, work i s man

’

s

greatest blessmg. There is no one thing thathas ever done so much for humanity, that hasgiven so much happiness, saved so manyhuman beings from despair, and kept so manyfrom suicide ; no one thing that has calledforth so many hidden resources, developed andstrengthened so many powers of mind andbody as has work .

A woman whose husband’s health had failed,

and who had also lost hi s property, said thatShe had never known what real happiness, realsatisfaction, was until She had to push out forherself, to struggle to make a living for herself and her husband . She said that many ofthe things which previously had loomed so

large, and annoyed her intensely when she hadlittle or nothi ng to do, disappeared altogether

106

WORK AND H APPINESS 1 07

as the larger responsibilities came to her . Inthe exercise of her talents in her daily workshe found new life, new courage, new ambition . Her health also improved greatly aftershe had been thrown upon her own resour ces .Dr . Richard C . Cabot, of Harvard Univer

si ty, says :“A human bein g is a creature who

cannot be healthy or happy or useful unlesshis balance is preserved by motion, by change,by action, by progress . In other words, noman or woman can be healthy, happy or useful if not engaged in useful, productive work,work that will be of some service to mankind .

Many people have a sort of vague impression that a happy, constructive life is a thingapart from the day’s work, that it is a mysticalsomething, determined largely by fate ordestiny. The truth is, it depends entirely onhow we manipulate our personal assets . Thematerial of which success and happiness arebuilt is in our own hands . The building isthe work of every day. It consists in livinglife up to its maximum possibility of good .

There is no unn atural straining and strivingin this . It is a simple matter of honest

,ear

n est, persistent endeavor every day ; of always

108 LOVE’S WAY

trying to better our best and to make ourhighest moment permanent .

“Get your happiness out of your work oryou will never know what real happiness is,

”

said Elbert Hubbard . The idle life is never ahappy life . You must feel satisfied with yourself before you can be happy, and you are notsatisfied with yourself unless you are doing thebest thing possible to you . I never knew anidle person to approve of or think much ofhimself. Such people are always restless, discontented, unhappy, always hunting for newSensations, new excitements .No one has ever found greater happinessthan in the normal, vigoro

'

us exercise of hisfaculties along the line of his bent . If youhave the right Spirit ; if you have the soul ofan artist, no matter what

“ your vocation, however laborious your work, you will find j oyand satisfaction in it. The only genuine satisfaction that can come to a human being is tobe a real man, or a real woman, and one cannot be that and live an idle, useless life .One of the greatest delusions that ever creptinto a human brain is the idea that the body ofman, with its complex activities and function s,

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1 10 LOVE’ S WAY

with the tasks of the shepherd and husbandmen ; many of the deepest truths He gave toHis disciples were made real and comprehen

sible by the imagery of the working life in thefields and at home ; and when he said,

‘MyFather worketh hitherto, and I work .

’ Henot only gave a divine sanction to work, butHe made it a part of the divine life .”

There is something inside a man that condemus him and utters its everlasting protestagainst his taking out of life ’s granary all thegood things which the workers have put into it,while he has done nothing himself to produceor to earn these things . There is somethinginside of him that tells him he is mean and contempti ble, that he is a thief, if he does notperform his part of theworld

’s work.

How would you feel i fyou were wrecked atsea and Should climb upon a great raft whichyour fellow passengers had made out of floating pieces of the wrecked ship, taking themost comfort able position, eating heartily ofthe scant food, drinking all the water youwanted

,even though the workers went thirsty

while you refused to do your share of the necessary work in the desperate effort to get

WORK AND HAPPINESS 1 1 1

ashore ! How do you think your companionswould feel ! Would they not be justified inthrowing you overboard !

Now, the human race is a great world raft,sailing at lightning speed through space

,and

the work of every human being on board isnecessary to keep the raft headed in the rightdirection, and always moving toward the appointed goal . I f any one neglects to do hispart the whole raft suff ers .But for the blessing of work the humanmind would go to pieces . It is good, honest,regular work that preserves the physical andmental balance and keeps us in a normal condition.

God’s medicine is work that we love . God’splan for man’s development, his growth inmental and physical power and resourcefulness, is work.

It is the desire to attain, the struggle torealize our dreams, that unfolds our powers,calls, out our reserves, forms the character,makes the man ; and there is no other possibleway than through this exercise and throughthis evolutionary process that this great endcan be accomplished.

1 12 LOVE’ S WAY

Growth and happiness are foun d only inwork ; yet how most of-us grumble at havingto work so hard for everything we get ! Whohas not sometimes asked himself the question,Why could not the Omnipotent cause bread

ready made to grow on trees, and our clothi ng and our homes to come to us ready foruse, so that we could spend our time in thedevelopment of our intellects, in self-culture,in travel, in pleasure !

”

How little do themaj ority of us realize thateverything that is des1rable is so only because

of its cost in effort ! Supposing the Creatorhad provided everything full grown, readymade for our use, and that every human be1ng had been college educated when born ;supposing every wish could be. gratified without any effort on our part, who would want tolive in such a backboneless, j ellyfish world,where there was no stamina, no initiative, nogrit, no resolution, no incentive to activity,and consequently no stalwart manhood, nostrong sweet womanhood, because thesethings would be impossible without the con

stant struggle to attain ! Who would care to

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1 14

with our environment . When we add to thisthe doing of a superb piece of work, a fineday’s work, we feel a sense of great sati sfaction because we are using the human machinein a normal way, in the way it was intendedto be used . We have been exercising it tothe best of our ability, bringing into play ourhighest faculties

,and contributing our Share

to the world’s wealth .

If we have found our n i che, i f we are. doingthe thing we were made to do, we Shall findno other happiness, noother satisfaction quiteequal to that which we get out of our day

’

s

work.

I have rarely known of anyone to breakdown in doing work he loved . If we wereall in our right places, doing the thing natureplanned us to do, our wOrk would be almostlike play. Where the heart is there is nofriction or discord, and friction and discordare what wear life out . These are what exhaust the Vitality and waste the brain power.If you love your work, it will not depleteyour strength, because it will not be a grind .

On the contrary, it will be a pleasure, a per

petual stimulus .

WORK AND HAPPINESS 1 5

The New Thought philosophy teaches thatthe mental attitude which we hold toward ourwork

, or our a im in life, has everything to dowith what we accomplish, with what life yieldsof true happiness and success . No one canmake a real masterpiece of life until he seessomething infinitely greater in hi s vocationthan bread and butter and Shelter. Until hesees his work as a task appointed him by theFather, to be done in the spirit of love, he willnot have the right mental attitude toward it .Has not the Christ, whose life has taught allmen how to li ve, said :

“My meat is to do thewill of him that sent me, and to fin ish hiswork” ! And again, just before Gethsemaneand Calvary : Father, I have glorified thee onthe earth ; I have finished the work which thougavest me to do . An d now, 0 Father, glorifythou me with thi ne own self, with the glorywhich I had with thee before the world was .Even if you are doing something that is notcongenial, make the best of it . Throw yourwhole soul into it. Do it with a manly, or awomanly Spirit, in the spirit of an artist inlove with his work, and you will rob it of itsdrudgery. Resolve that you wi ll like it so long

1 16 LOVE’ S WAY

as you are obliged to do it, and that very mental attitude will be a step in leading you tothat work which you were really created to do .

When you work i n a grudging, unwillingspirit

, you discourage and weaken the veryqualities in yourself that will enable you tolift yourself out of an uncongenial positioninto the one you long to fill . If you have alevel head, perseverance, and the right spirityou can make success enough even in the thingyou do not like to enable you to open the doorto your real work.

Good work never goes unrewarded . Thewillingness to do right, the spirit which nevertires of trying to do its best, which puts willing effort into the humblest or most disagreeable task—this is the spirit which accomplishesthe great things of life .There is no other road to happiness thanwork.

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1 18 LOVE’ S WAY

it in the cup with a Good luck and then,readj usting her load, the good Samaritan wenton her way.

This is love ’s way.

Love is never too burdened to be kind, nevertoo poor to give, never too busy to help . Italways finds a way to serve .There are one hundred and fifty or moreblind chi ldren i n the elementary grades 1n theNew York public schools . These children arebeing taught to do the same work - that theirmore fortunate brothers and sisters are doing.

They are given the same examinations,and are

judged by the same standards . They are inthe same room with them, and are marked justas impartially. No allowance is made for theirhandicap .

The teacher who has charge of the blind children says that thei r whole aim i s to make the

chi ldren forget that they are bli nd.

This is love ’s way.

Love seeks to make people forget their troubles and trials, their unfortunate handicaps .Love increases their hOpe, bids them look forward and upward. It stimulates their ambition and helps them to overcome the obstacle

PRACTISING LOVE ’S WAY 1 19

which otherwise would hold them down andembitter their lives .A poor crippled boy classifies his friends bythe i r tact, or their lack of it, in referring tohi s misfortunes . He says he often meets people who don’t mean to be unkind, but whoare constantly reminding him of his defect .They will ask him if he has always been thatway ; or if there is really no help for it ; if itdoesn’t make him very unhappy, and otherequally foolish questions . On the other hand,those who have enough imagination, as well aslove, to put themselves in his place, never treathim as though he is inferior physically, or makehim feel that he is placed at a disadvantage inlife . They never refer to his handicap anymore than if it did not exist, and he loves themall the more for their tenderness . These heranks as his b

pst friends .

Real friends never remind us of personalblemishes or deficiencies . Nor do they upbraidus for our sins or shortcom i ngs . When Elizabeth Fry was doing her marvelous work amongthe prisoners in London, She was asked by a

visitor to the prison what crime a certain girl

prisoner had committed.

“I never asked her,”

120 LOVE ’

S WAY

was the reply. The great-hearted womandidn’t want to know the girl’s faults or of

fen ses. Her one thought was to help all of theunfortunate women to leave their unhappypast and rise to the height of their possibilities .This is love ’s way.

Love does not see the bad in others . It looksfor the best, sees only the good. No matterhow low a human being may fall, love still seesthe God in him .

There is a story that an angel was once sentfrom heaven to visit London . A gu i de conducted the celestial visitor through the city.

He took him to the best art galleries and museums, to the most beautiful parks and squares,to the historic monuments and public places,to all the Show places of the great metropoli s .The Visitor politely not iced these things, butasked to be taken also to the poorer parts ofthe city, to the Slums . The guide explainedthat these were such unlovely places, and thepeople who lived in them so degraded anddownfallen, that it would only pain him to seethem

,and that they had better not go to those

wretched quarters . The angel, however, urgedthat he would li ke to see all sides of the

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r

122 LOVE’S WAY

This is love’s way.

A rich man being asked what act of his lifehad given him the most real satisfaction, replied that i t was the paying off of a littlemortgage on a poor woman’s home at the moment of a threatened foreclosure . He saidthat the happy smile

,the j oy and relief that

came to the woman’s face when he told herwhat he was doing had given him more happines s than any of the bigger things he had everdone.It is not the big things of life, but the aggregate of the little kindnesses, the trifling actsof helpfulness, the few kindly words, the littledaily deeds of love, that give us real happiness,that make life worth living. Big things comeonly now and then in a lifetime, and to com

parati vely few people ; but no matter how poorwe are, or how uneventful our lives, we can allbe philanthropists of kindness . We can giveour smiles, our encouragement, our sympathyto someone who needs them every day in theyear. These often mean more to a discouragedsoul than does money.

The more we help others,the more closely

we touch other l i ves, the more we expand and

PRACTISING LOVE ’S WAY 123

grow ourselves, the more love and power come,back to us . What E lizabeth Barrett Browning says is literally true

A poor man served by thee, shall make thee rich ;A Sick man helped by thee, shall make thee strong ;Thou shalt be served thyself by every senseOf service whi ch thou renderest.”

Did you ever lose anything by help ing thehelpless, smoothing the path of the un fortunate ! Did you ever regret lightening the burden of the distressed, encouraging those whohave lost heart ! Did you ever regret the littletime, the little effort expended, to scatter sunshine and flowers as you go along life ’s pathway !

TRAIN ING TH E CHILD

NOT long ago a woman applied to a NewYork district court to have her son Haroldsent to a reformatory.

When questioned by the magistrate as toher reason for wishing her son sent to such aninstitution, the distressed mother replied thatit was because the boy

!

was so bad she couldn’tdo anything with him . Then turning to theboy, the magistrate asked him why he didn

’tbehave like a man and treat his mother better.Because She hits my dog, was the startlingreply.

Further quest1on 1ng‘

revealed that a neighbor gave the lad a puppy, a little mongrelthing, three months old, which he had taughtto beg, to carry things 1n his mouth, and toperform some little dog tricks . He had builta little house for the dog to Sleep in, and hadalso earned enough money to buy a collar for

The mother ackn owledged that She con si d124

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126 LOVE’ S WAY

the only power that will call out the true, thebeautiful side of its nature . It is only the hard,coarse

,and unlovely qualities that are devel

oped by force and repression .

How often would a little kindness and forbearance on the part of a parent or guardian,a little better knowledge of child nature, dowonders for a so-called “bad boy

” who is cons i dered

“incorrigible,” a fit subj ect for a re

formatory !

Judge Lindsey, who has, perhaps, a betterknowledge of the nature of the growing boyand girl than any psychologist or expert inchild study, says :

“The child is a wonderfulcreature, a divine machine . We have much toexpect from him, but he has much to expectfrom us, and what he returns depends largelyupon what we give .Children instinctively admire the good and

the beautiful . They are natural hero-worshipers, and they respond enthusiastically to stories of heroism, high endeavor, loyalty, chivalry, all the highest and best instincts of therace. The noblest qualities are inherent in thechild. But wrong training— suppression, nagging, scolding, terrorizing, depriving the grow

TRAINING THE CHILD 12 7

ing mind of the stimulus of good books, fineexamples of living, the starving of its bodythrough i n sufli ci en t or improper food— all thismay

,and often does, turn what with proper

training might have been a splendid boy or

girl into a pitiable human wreck .

The destiny of the child hangs upon its earlyenvironment, its parents , teachers and associates . Upon these depend the qualities or characteri sti cs that will be called out of its nature .There are seeds of all sorts of possibili tieslying dormant in the boy and the girl. A badmother, a bad teacher, by appealing to the badin them, will call out the bad . A good mother,a good teacher, by appealing to the best inthem, will call out the best . Evil responds toevil . Nobility responds to nobility.

If you want to get the most out of yourchild, you cannot do i t by repressing, bycramping

,by watching, or by criticizing him.

I have known children to become so completelydiscouraged by being constantly denounced

,

scolded, perpetually reminded of their Shortcomings, their weaknesses, by being told thatthey were stupid blockheads and would neveramount to anyth ing, that they completely lost

1 28 LOVE’ S WAY

confidence in themselves,and instead of pro

gressing in a natural healthy way, they con

stan tly fell behind in their studies, in theirwork, in every way.

How often we hear a parent talking to a boyafter this fashion : “Now hurry up , you lazygood-for-nothing. What makes you so slowand stupid ! I never saw such a blockhead !Why don ’t you get a move on you ! You

will never amount to anything, anyway !These denunciations so discourage a boyafter a while that he doesn’t care, and doesn

’ttry, to do his best . Then, of course, his standards drop and he deteriorates .The principle so effective in animal tamingand training is just as effective in child training, in man and woman making. Children loveto be praised and appreciated

,just as horses

and dogs and other animals do . Many children, especially those of a sensitive nature, liveupon praise and appreciation, but the momenta high-spirited child is struck we naturallyarouse his bitter resentment

,his hatred

,his

antagon ism.

I know a father who every time his boycommits any little fault flies into a rage and

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1 30 LOVE’ S WAY

Every time you punish your son in anger hedespises you for it . He knows that you do itbecause you are stronger and claim the rightby Virtue of your fatherhood.

You can get the confidence of your boy justas you can get the confidence of friends, andin no other way. Love and respect will comeonly in response to love and respect . If youlove your boy in the right way, and if youenter into all his ambitions and life dreamswith keen interest ; if he feels that you arereally his best friend,he will tell you everything, and not until then .

Many parents are distressed by the waywardn ess of their children ; but the waywardness they deplore is often more imagi narythan real . A large part of, their children’spranks and mischief i s ‘

merely the result ofexuberant youthful spirits . They are so fullof energy, and so buoyant with li fe that i t isdifficult for them to restrain themselves . Loveis the only power that will control them .

Amother who has brought up a large familyof children in the most admirable way saysShe has never applied physical punishment orspoken a cross word to one of them .

TRAINING THE CHILD 1 3I

When this woman ’s fir st child was born,friends and neighbors said She was too goodnatured to bring up children, that she wouldspoil them, as She would not correct or di SCIpli ne, and would do nothing but love them.

It is true,love was her only instrument of

correction and discipline, but what splendid results it has achieved ! Love has proved thegreat magnet which has held her large familytogether in a marvelous way. Not one member of it has gone astray. They have all grownup to be noble, straightforward, self-reliantmen and women. To-day they all look upontheir mother as the greatest figure in the

world . She has brought out the best in them .

The worst did not need correctin g or repressing, because the best overpowered it . Thechildren always worshiped their mother

,and

the expulsive power of a stronger emotiondrove out of their nature, or discouraged thedevelopment of all vicious tendencies

,which

,

in the absence of a great love, mi ght have become dominant .iLove

’

S way is the only way that alwaysworks . No human being in any part of theworld has found that love’s way has fai led,

132 LOVE’ S WAY

that it has ever been wanting. It is as stableand as certain as the law of gravitation .

A young society woman, not long ago, byi ts help, succeeded in changing a group of theworst boys in an east side district in NewYork into earnest, self-respecting, ambitiousyoungsters . According to the social workerwho put the boys in her charge, they

“allsmoke and shoot craps, the toughest boys onthe east side .The first thing the young woman did was totry to replace the old evil influences which hadmade the boys what they were by somethingbetter. So, she invited the whole

“gang,eighteen in all, to her home . This first partywas a complete failure The boys made anuproar ; turned the place into a bedlam, andbehaved generally as if they were in their oldhaunts . But the young woman was not discouraged. She continued her parties, andgradually her visitors responded to her kindness and genuine interest in them . Love,which i s always patient, at length won out,and in a comparatively Short time their unruly natures were subdued, and they were as

respectful to the young woman and her father

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134 LOVE’ S WAY

The Director of Education in the Philippine Islands says, The games which we havetaught the Filipinos have done for themmore than all the other civilizing influencewhich America has brought . Before we cameto the Islands the boys practically had nogames and no plays . They had simple pastimes only. The girls had even less than theirbrothers . The games we have taught, a dozenor more in all, have brought these boys intotheir stronger and happier selves .”

Froebel tells us that play is i n reality themost spiritual activity of man in childhood.

He finds that it is “typical of human life as awhole—of the inner, hidden, natural life ofman and all things ; it gives, therefore, j oy,freedom, contentment, inner and outer rest,peace with the world ; i t

‘

h olds the sources ofall that is good . The child that plays thoroughly until physical fatigue forbids willsurely be a thorough determined man

,capable

of self—sacri fice for the promotion and welfareof himself and others .The brain would be a prisoner but for the

five senses . These five outlets connect it withthe outside world . Without these connections

TRAINING THE CHILD 1 3 5

a person would become. an imbecile . Children,for a few years at least, find their chief outletin play.

5

In the earlier, crueler centuries when smallchildren were sometimes imprisoned for manyyears in dark dungeons, where no light orsound could reach them, and wherethey werenot allowed to communicate with human beings, they never developed. They became imbeci les.

Christ was the first who voiced the rightsof the child. There was a time when

,if they

were at all defective or deficient, children wereexposed to wild animals ; or if they were notlikely to be strong and able to serve the statethey were sacrificed . At this time the child wasnot supposed to have any rights that adultswere bound to respect, but Chr ist said,

“Whososhall offend one of these little ones which believe in me it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that hewere drowned in the depth of the sea .Christ gave a new significance to the child,a new life and a new opportunity to it and toall mankind . The love leaven he. unplantedin the world has started such a tremendous

136 LOVE’ S WAY

impulse in favor of the little child, that it i staking hundreds of thousands of children outof factories, stores, and mines, and sendingthem to school

,giving them a chance for life .

In Denmark, where children are not onlytheoretically the nation’s greatest resource,but are treated as such, the state exercises akindly supervision and care over every child,no matter whose it is , whether high or low,

rich or poor. No child is allowed to go towaste, to become a menace to society, becauseof the parents ’ ignorance or indifference .Every boy and girl, insofar as the state canmake it possible, is insured trammg for healthand efficiency, so that they will grow up independent, self—respecting citizens, fully developed physically and mentally.

Every government shOuld guarantee theInalienable right of its children to a fair chancein life, to all the advantages which a superbphysique, robust health, a practical educationand good moral training will give them . Ifall the civilized states would spend as muchmoney on the proper rearing and educationof their children as they now spend in conducting criminal trials, in Supporting prisons,

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how to discipline, to withhold as well as togive .Many parents who think they love theirchildren are in reality their greatest enemies .They bring out the worst that is in them

,be

cause they appeal to the worst . They appealto all that is frail, weak, t imid, and unlovablein their nature, by catering to their selfishness,indulging every whim, no matter how un

reasonable or Vicious,by doing everything for

them instead of allowing them to do things forthemselves and thus Strengthen their facul

ties and power of self—reliance .They are allowed to stay at home fromschool when they “play” sick, as so many children do, and are petted, and coddled, andfussed over

,when there is really nothing the

matter with them . If they fall or hurt themselVes they are sympathized with and en cour

aged to cry,by expressions of pity, instead of

being taught to bear a little pain or hurtbravely and manfully and not to whimper likea weakling.

In a hundred such ways, weak, foolishparents cultivate the selfishness of their children until they become unbearable ; they de

TRAI NING THE CHILD 1 39

stroy their courage and self-reliance ; makecowards and weaklings of them, and pave theway for their destruction . Many men andwomen have lived to curse in bitterness ofheart the criminal indulgence of overfondparents, who were the primal cause of theirruin .

Do not do for your children what they oughtto do for themselves, but help them to helpthemselves . Do not allow them to trampleon the rights of others in order to gratify the irown selfish desires . Show them the beauty ofthe Golden Rule, and insist upon their praeti sin g it in their games, with their playmates,and with older people . Teach them to respectthe rights of others ; but don

’t forget underany circumstances that they alsohave rightswhich should be respected .

You can no more compel the love and ad

mi rati on and respect of your child by constantly antagon i zing, and fin ding fault withhim

,and showing him the unlovely side of

your character on the one hand, or, on theother, pandering to every unreasonable whim,

than a youn g man could compel a girl to lovehim by adoptin g simi lar means .

140 LOVE’S WAY

The training of a child is the most delicateand sacred business in the world. It is a workthat calls for the greatest wisdom, the finestdiscernment, the most infinite patience . Loveincludes all of these .In training your child try love ’s way.

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142 LOVE’ S WAY

twenty orphans—gave them home and bed andfood ; taught them all She knew ; helped someto obtam a scant knowledge of the trades ;helped others off to Canada and America .The author says she had misshapen features,but that an exquisite smile was on the deadface . It must have been so. She ‘had abeautiful soul,

’ as Emerson said of Longfellow Her life was a sweet episodein London’s history. Social reform has felther influence . Like a

,broken vase, the per

fume of her be i ng will sweeten literature andsociety a thousand years after we are gone .Oh, marvelous power of love that lightensall heavy burdens and smooths all rough roads !What would become of humanity were it notfor love, which sweetens the hardest labor andmakes self-sacri fice a joy ! Without its transforming power we Should still be primitivebarbarians .Love is the greatest tonic to the muscles andto all the faculties . Luther Burbank told mewhen I visited him at his great horticulturalfarm in California that he would not employmen who did not love flowers and enj oy cari ng for them, because he said if they did not,

H ow To LIGHTEN YOUR BURDENS 143

the flowers felt their antagonism and wouldnot thrive with them as they did with peoplewho loved them . Love of your work will enlarge your life and increase your ability. Joyin one ’s tasks is what sunshine is to the fruitsand flowers . A person can do much more andbetter work where his heart is than where itis not .What mothers endure for many years fortheir children would kill or drive them to aninsane asylum but for love . This takes thedrudgery out of service and lightens all burdens . It is love alone that enables the poormother to go through terrible experiences inher struggles with poverty and Sickness to rearher children . Love takes the sting out ofpoverty, the pain out of sacrifice . There isnothing too hard, too disagreeable or repul

sive to human natur e for a mother to do forher children . She will toil and perspire all

day, and then rob herself of sleep and rest,walking the floor night after night with a Sickchild. These services She will perform forweeks and perhaps months at a time, evenwhen she may be ill enough to be in bed herself. In fact, there is no service which it i s

144 LOVE’S WAY

possible for one human being to render an

other which the loving mother will not perform for her child .

The same thing is true of the loving father,though his burden in the nature of things i srarely as heavy as the mother’s . But he i soften virtually a slave for half a lifetime ormore for those he loves . If he i s a real man,however, he does not complain . Love lightensthe burden and cheers the way for the realman, as it does for the real woman. Wherethe heart is, there the

!

burden i s light.Obedience to the divine injunction, Bearye one another ’s burdens,

”i s the surest way of

making one ’s own life rich and beautiful . Itwas this that made Lincoln the best loved manin America . He was loved in his lifetime, andis loved to-day as perhaps no other man on

this continent was ever loved, because of hi skindly disposition and rare Spirit of helpfulness . His spontaneous desire to help everybody, and especially to return a kindness,endeared him to all who knew him. H is desire to help the burden bearers, in youth asin later life, amounted to a passion . Hechopped wood for the poor widows in hi s

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146 LOVE’ S WAY

grief that I should miss the train. I wasstanding at the gate, crying, when Mr. Lincoln came. along.

‘Why, what’s the matter ! ’ he asked.

‘The hackman has not come to get mytrunk,

’ I replied.

‘How big is the trunk ! ’ he asked.

‘There’stime enough i f it isn’t too big.

’ He pushedthrough the gate, and my mother took him upto my room, where my little old-fashionedtrunk was waiting.

‘Oh, ho !’ he cried

,

‘wipe your eyes andcome on, quick.

’ Before I knew what he wasgoing to do, he had shouldered the trunk, andwas downstairs and striding out of the yard .

Down the street he went,as fast as his long

legs could carry him, I trotting behind, drying my eyes as I wen te e reached the station in time . Mr . Lincoln put me on the train,kissed me good-by, and told me to have agood time .

-Whether it was a little child in distress, ora mother pleading for the li fe of her boy, thisgreat loving soul was always ready to lightentheir load, to help others carry their burden.

A candle loses nothing by giving its light

H OW To LIGHTEN YOUR BURDENS 147

to light another’s candle which has gone out .We never lose anything by a kindly deed, bygiving a helping hand to a brother wayfarer.On the contrary, whatever your vocation, youwill find that if you go through life as a helper,a lifter, an encourager, if you give any littlehelp or encouragement from day to d ay to theburden-bearers, to those who are less fortunate than yourself, you will be richer and notpoorer for it . The habit of being kind, ofhelping others

,will not only cause you i n

finite satisfaction, but it will actually increaseyour ability because it will make you happier,and whatever makes you really happy i ncreases your ability and efficiency. Wheneverwe lose an opportunity to be helpful we losethe blessing and the j oy which attends serviceto others .

“Without distinction, without calculation,without procrastination, love,

” says Drummond .

“Lavish it upon the poor, where it isvery easy ; especially upon the rich, who oftenneed it most, most of all upon our equals,where it is very difficult, and for whom perhaps we each do least of all .”

Governor An drews, the famous war govI

LOVE’ S WAY

ernor of Massachusetts,was called the Wide

Liker,” by the colored people who loved him

because of his love and sympathy for them.

Everybody who knew him loved him . Theycouldn’t help it, because he had a great sympathetic, kindly heart ; and, after all, it i s theheart qualities that count . Governor An drewshad a great

,wise head, but the poor, colored

people did not understand much about that .They did understand and appreciate a greatkind heart, and when their friend, the Governor, was buried, many poor, old, raggedcolored men and women walked beside hiscoffin the whole five miles from Boston toMount Auburn .

There i s on e thing that is infinitely moredesirable than wealth or fame or any otherearthly thing

,and thatu

’

s the good Opinion ofyour fellow men . The reputation of beingkindly, of being helpful , of always being readyto gIve a lift to the unfortunate, is worth morethan any amount of money, because it meansa life of service, and the satisfaction whichcomes from such a life is greater than anyfortune can give .The son of a poor country clergyman who

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XIII

SURVIVAL VALUE

OF all those who went to their doom on theLusitania,

” there was one whose fate arousedmore widespread sympathy and called outdeeper and more numerous expressions of sorrow than any other. That one was CharlesFrohman, the theatrical manager —

“C . as

his friends and employees affectionately calledhim .

“Authors, actors and actresses have lost thegreatest friend they ever had . He did morefor them than any other manager .” “No man

,

woman or child ever saw him angry or heardhim raise his voice . I never knew him to havean enemy. I never heard him speak ill ofanyone .” He filled a unique position in allcountries and belonged to the whole world,which will grieve for him as I do now.

” “Ihave never met a kinder, straighter, moregenerous, more considerate man . It isdoubtful whether any man in the theatricalbusiness ever lived who gave away so much

150

SURVIVAL VALUE 15 1

money to charity as ‘ C . F If when I die,he once said to me,

“I can do so with the loveand respect of all my stars, all my authors, allmy associates

,all my employees, then I will

not have lived in vain.

” “Wherever two orthree people of the theatre are gathered together, whether they be billposters

’

or magnates, they will tell you that

‘ C . F .

’ was on eof the squarest men ever engaged in the Showbusiness .”

These are but a few of the many tributesfrom friends, associates, and employees to thememory of Charles Frohman, heard on everyside after the tragedy of May, 1 9 1 5 . Theyexplain the widespread mourning for his loss .They emphasize the. meaning of that s ign i ficant phrase “ survival value.

”

This is the test of a man’s work, his character, his life— its survival value . Only thatwhich is useful to humanity has longevity.

The good deed, the helpful service, the kindlyact, the work which benefits the race—theseare the things that endure .History does not ask how much money aman has left, how many things he piled upabout him, how many stocks and bonds he

5 2 LOVE ’ S WAY

managed to get hold of,how much land he

held the title deed to . It cares nothing aboutthe selfish life, takes no interest in the accumulation of gold . The only question history willask about yOu after you are gone is “Howmuch of a man was he ! What did he do forhis kind ! D id he add anything to the comfort, the convenience, the wellbeing, the happiness of his fellowmen ! What serv1ce did herender to humanity !

”

The world erects its monuments to thosewho relate to it through their high qualitiesof manhood . It erects none to those who areconnected with it only through their selfishrelationship . Your contact with the worldmust be a vital one, one of helpfulness andservice, or you wi ll qu i ckly be forgotten . Itcherishes the memory of those only who havebeen useful to it, those who have given civilization a lift, who have in some way betteredthe conditions of the race . It gives its loveonly to those whose hearts have beaten insympathy with the race .Because of his immense service to mankind

,

t ime only makes Lincoln loom larger andlarger as an international figure . As the

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1 5 4 LOVE’S WAY

ence Nightingale are stamped for all time onthe heart of mankind . The one was born in alog cabin ; the other in a palatial home . Butboth lives were animated by the same passionfor service which the world gratefully commemorates, not only in monuments of bronze,but in undying memory.

At a large dinner party given by LordStratford after the Crimean War, it was proposed that everyone Should write on a Sli p ofpaper the name which appeared most likely todescend to posterity with renown . When thepapers were opened every one of them conta i n ed the name of Florence Nightingale .What the vast resources of the British armyhad failed to do for its soldiers in the Crimea

,

the great brain, the loving heart and tendersympathy of th1s frail, delicately nurturedwoman had accomplished .

When Florence Nightingale went to theCrimea, a far larger percentage of soldierswere dying of disease than were being killedin battle . This because of the appalling un

sanitary conditions i n the hospitals, and thelack of all facilities for caring for the Sick andwounded . With a largeness of brain, only

SURVIVAL VALUE 1 5 5

equaled by her largeness of heart, She soonbrought order out of chaos, and convertedwhat had been a plague spot into a place ofhealth and healing. No wonder they calledher the “Angel of the Crimea,

” for the workShe accomplished with hand and heart andbrain was nothing Short of miraculous .

“Wherever there is disease in its most dan

gerous form, and the hand of the Spoiler mostdistressingly nigh, wrote a Crimean correSpon dent of the London T imes,

“there is thatincomparable woman sure to be seen ; her ben ign an t presence is an influence for good comfort even amid the struggles of expiring nature . She is a ‘ministering angel,

’ withoutany exaggeration, in these hospitals, and, asher slender form glides quietly along eachcorridor, every poor fellow

’s face softens withgratitude at the Sight of her. When all themedical offi cers have retired for the night

,and

silence and darkness have settled down uponthese miles of prostrate Sick, she may be observed, alone, with a little lamp in her hand,making her solitary rounds .”

“If any one’s heart is full of love an d hishand full of service he has no morbid ‘ prob

1 5 6 LOVE’S WAY

lems,’ said Dr. Frank Crane . He has

solved the riddle of life .”

With love in your heart, you have not onlyhappiness, -but a power of accomplishmentwhich no amount of money can give. If thegood done by love alone could be taken outof the world what would be left us ! There isnothing great, enduring, worth while on whichit is not builded .

Some seventy or more years ago a pooryoung curate in Brittany had an idea that thepoor should help the

!

poor. His salary wasonly eighty dollars a year, his friends andparishioners were the poorest of the poor, andwithout money he proceeded to launch hisidea . He got together some of his friends andoutlined to them his plan for helping those whowere poorer than themselves . As a result, ina poverty- stricken attic, in a poor street, withtwo old women as its first beneficiaries, theOrder of the Little S isters of the Poor wasstarted. And from that humble beginn ing hasgrown that mighty organization which nowcovers two continents and gives food andshelter

,encouragement and help to thousands

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1 5 8 LOVE’ S WAY

tion at Ashley Downs, supported entirely byvoluntary contributions, has educated andprovided for many thousands of waifs .Another of those great souls who in theirlove for humanity builded better than ‘ theyknew was Annie M cD on ald . She was only apoor dressmaker who died in New York someyears ago, and left everything she had in theworld, two hundred dollars, as a legacy tostart a home for crippled children . She feltthat other charities of almost every kind hadbeen attended to but the poor crippled littleones . She had always done what she could tohelp them when living

,and with a faith that

Iooks beyond obstacles she had left her littlefortune to them, hoping and believing that itwould suggest to others with greater meansthe necessity of establishing a home for thosepoor children . This was the beginning of theDaisy Fields Home for Crippled Children.

It stands back of the Palisades, on the Hudson

,i n the midst of a great field which in

summer is covered with daisies . Here the children are cared for until they are either com

pletely cured or able to support themselveswithout suffering. This is love ’s way.

SURVIVAL VALUE 1 5 9

A man may be perfectly honest, industriousand self-supporting, and yet be of practicallyno value whatever to his community. To beof worth to your fellow-men you must be morethan honest ; you must be helpful ; you mustbe a lifter ; you must have an unselfish interestin your kind . The man who thinks only ofhimself, no matter how much money he may

p ile up, can never win the love or esteem ofhis fellow-men .

“So much money and so few friends, was aremark recently made about a New York manwho had piled up a great deal of money, buthad not a real friend in the world

,not one who

regarded him with affection or esteem . Inspite of his wealth, this man, and there arethousands like him, is of no benefit whateverto his community. He is a liability rather thanan asset . His influence is destructive .There must be an outlet as well as an i nletto a pool of water or the water w ill stagnateand breed all sort

's of vermin . It will also ex

hale poisonous malaria and poi sOn its wholen eighborhood. We, too, must give out as wellas receive or we will stagnate . People whoare always getting, never giving themselves or

160 LOVE’ S WAY

their money,who are always grasping andhoardi ng, who have no outlet to, their lives, area pest to society ; they radiate poison.

Getting and never giving defeats i ts ownpurpose, for the selfish, miserly soul nevergives or receives happiness . I know a wealthyman who says nobody cares what becomes ofhim. The only motive people have in cultivati ng him, he says, is the hope of gettingsome advantage of his wealth . He believesif he should lose his money no one would goto see him or even visit him in the hospital ifhe should be ill .Now, a man wh o has gained a fortune and

lost hi s friends in the process, has failed, nomatter how many millions he may haveamassed. A fortune acquired through selfishness and greed by a man who has sacrificedhi s friendships, his home, his family, who hasground all of his time and energy into thedollar game, does not enrich even himself.The man who grinds the life out of his em

ployees for his own profit, who makes himselfa sponge to pull things toward him and whonever gives anything out i s the worst sort ofpauper. H i s li fe makes the world poorer

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TH E M IRACLE WORKER

Love i s the eldest and noblest and mightiest of the gods, andthe chiefest author and giver of Vi rtue in life and of happinessa fter death—PLATO.

AN English soldier in India, who seemedto be a hopeless drunkard, had been broughttime and again before his superior officer fordrinking and severely punished.

“Here he is again, said this officer one day,when the man was brought before him by asergeant . “Flogging

,disgrace

,solitary con

fin ement, everything we can think of, has beentried to cure this man of drinking and it is nouse . He is hopeless .”

“Pardon me,sir,

” the sergeant said, butthere i S one thing that we haven’t tried yet.”“Well, S i r, what is it !

” “He has never beenforgiven, sir.

” Forgiven !” shouted the officer, with a look of blank astonishment , butturning to the culprit he said,

“What have youto say to this charge .” “Nothing, Si r,

”re

plied the man ;“only I am awfully sorry for

162

THE MIRACLE WORKE R 1 63

having got drunk again . Well, said theofficer,

“we certainly have tried everythingwith you, and now we are going to do as thesergeant suggests, try one thing more ; we aregoing to forgive you .

”

Tears streamed down the man’s face as ifhe were a child, and thanking the officer heretired, apparently a hopeless Victim of drink .

But no, this first kindness of his Coloneltouched his heart

,and he resolved that he

would never drink again. The chaplain of hisregiment, who told the story, said that the manbecame a model soldier and never again hadto be reprimanded for drinking.

The miracle worked in this drunken soldierby forgiving love is proof that the age ofmiracles has not passed . It will never passwhile love endures, for love is con ti nuallv

worki ng miracles in all sorts of people .The possibilities of a Single individual asillustrated in “The Passing of the Third FloorBack” to revolutionize a whole household bythe power of love alone are not exaggerated .

Those who have seen or read the play willremember how, in response to an advertisement in a London paper,

“Room to let, third

64 LOVE’ S WAY

floor back, comes a remarkable man, who is

given the title of“The Stranger .” This man

takes the third floor back, and finds himselfin a boarding-house filled with questionablecharacters . Among them are petty thieves,gamblers, a rogue, a bully, a snob, a shrew,

people who had led fast lives, and all sorts ofuncharitable, envious. men and women. Theystoop to every kind of meanness . One womaneven steals candles . Every one tries to cheatevery one else and is cheated in return. Thelandlady is of the Same type as her boarders .She preys on them and they prey on her. Shewaters the milk, adulterates the food, stealsan d overcharges, and then to keep herself frombeing robbed She puts everything under lockand key.

In spite of the fact that they all make funof the newcomer because he does not fall intotheir vicious ways, he takes no offense, but onthe contrary gives them kindness and courtesyin return. Not only that, but he seems to seei n each of them something good, some finequalities or talents which they had not di scovered themselves . Beneath all their wickedn ess, their dishonesty, their licentiousness,

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1 66 LOVE’ S WAY

rich man, whose money her parents had cov

eted, under the influence of the occupant ofthe third floor back, became her very helpfulfriend .

Under the same benign influence the Shrewish landlady was also transformed. Sheceased watering the milk, adulterating thefoods , stealing from her boarders, and lockingthin gs up to guard against their stealing fromher. She began to trust people, to trust herself, to have more respect for herself andothers . She turned over a new leaf in her treatment of ‘her poor little “Slavey” who , previousto the new boarder ’s advent, had received nothing from her but abuse and ill treatment .She had constantly taunted the girl withthe fact that she had been an inmate ofthe workhouse, that She was a nobody, thatShe didn ’t amount to anything and neverwould. And although she worked the girlnearly to death, She rarely

’ gave her an evening off . Now the woman’s manner began tosoften toward her, and one day She surprisedthe girl by telling her She looked tired andthat She had better run out doors for a change .In fact, the hitherto harsh, slave-drivin g mis

THE MIRACLE WORKER L167

tress became kind and considerate, more likea mother t han a brutal employer.The poor Slavey herself was an obj ect ofespecial interest to the Stranger. He pers i sten tly encouraged her and tried to Show herthat she was not the nobody her mistress hadbeen telling her she was, and like all the othershe inspired her with a new feeli ng of respectfor herself and a new and enlarged estimateof her possibilities . Through the stimulus ofthe love spirit She ultimately became a fine,self-reliant, noble woman.

In a short time, the whole atmosphere of thehouse was changed. Every occupant of it respon ded to the di vme Influence of the gentle,unobtrusive lodger who was really a person i fication of the Christ spirit . He had Shownevery man and woman of that discordantj angling household his or her better self, andso, literally, made them anew. They had beenborn aga i n fi

le

This is what love always does . “It turns aperson around so that he sees things in a dif

Thi s and other illustrations in this volume, which in a Verybeautiful way empha siz e the rewards of love and service, havebeen adapted from other books of the author.

168: LOVE’ S WAY

feren t light, faces life in a different way. Itputs a new spirit in him ; it gradually neutralizes or drives out of the nature all selfishness,all greed, all unkindness, all uncharitableness .Love is the most potent influence in life .It is infinitely more powerful than the gambling instinct

,than the lust instinct, than the

greedy, grasping Instinct . It neutralizes allthe baser passions and instincts . It touchesthe God in man. It is the divine leaven of lovewhich uplifts and ennobles the whole nature .Who has not seen the magic power of lovein transforming brutal, dissolute men into refined and devoted husbands ! I have knownwomen who had such great, loving, helpfulhearts

,and such charm of manner, that the

worst men, the most hardened characterswould do anything in the world for themwould give up their li ves

’

even to protect them.

These men could not be touched by unkindness or compulsion . Love was the only powerthat could reach them .

“To love, and to be loved, said SydneySmith,

“is the greatest happiness of existence .Every one, rich and poor, high and low, isreaching out for love . What will not a man

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1 70 LOVE’ S WAY

first and began to teach him to read . Closerassociation with the man showed her his possibi li ti es and latent good quali ties, and gradually She grew to love him.

Then the leaven of love began to work inthe man’s nature . His coarse, vulgar manners immediately softened . He Showed morerefinement in speech and manner . The fearful profanity in which he used to indulgedropped from him little by little . He wasseen less and less in saloons and dives . Hebegan to clean up and to dress up . He tookmore interest in his work and for the firsttime in his life began to save money. Finallythe school teacher married him and hi s transformation was completed . He was a devotedhusband and became an able and useful citizen.

I recall another instan ce of the redeemingpower of love somewhat SImi lar to this . A

very pessimistic, ill-dispositioned man felldesperately in love with a sweet young girl,who in spite of his repellent qualities lovedhim and believed She could see the making ofa man in him . With all of his other bad qualities, he was subj ect to frightful fits of theblues, wh i ch would last him for days . While

THE MIRACLE WORKER 171

in their grip he would suffer terri bly, believingthat there was nothing in life worth living for .The girl married him and soon experiencedthe evil effects of his harsh, gloomy nature .But She was not discouraged and began theexperi n i en t of laughing him out of his blues,and in all sorts of ways trying to change thetenor of his thoughts . She was a student ofthe New Thought philosophy of life, and wasalways bright, cheerful , and hopeful . She wasconstantly telling her husband that happinesswas his birthright

,that being God’s child he

was not made to express any unfortunatequalities, and that the divine in him could andShould dominate the human, the animal . Shereminded him that his Maker was his partner

,

that consequently he was in touch with theInfin ite Source of all things, and that all thatwas beautiful and true, all that was desirablein the universe, all the good things, were hisif he would only claim them by developing hisGod consciousness .The young wife never ceased in her efforts,always using love’s way in whatever She triedto do for her husband . Where he had previ ously used the opposite, she persuaded him

172‘ LOVE’ S WAY

to substitute love ’s way. She showed him thatlove was the cure, the healing balm for all hisweakn esses , all his unhappiness, all his di fficulti es, and all his unfortunate qualities .It may have been a dangerous experimentfor the girl

,but the results were magi cal .

After a few months of the love treatment thisman became so changed in disposition, in personal appearance, in manner, in habits, in hisconversation and life generally, that his oldfriends and acquaintances scarcely knew him.

His nature had unfolded just as a plant unfolds when taken out of an inhospitable en

vi ronment and placed in a warm, congenialatmosphere . The man’s new environment, thesun of his wife ’s love, had nourished his nature and brought out the possible divine man .

Before his marriage he had merely been expressing his lower self, his brute nature . Butnow his life has blossomed into beauty ; he hasbecome a strong, splendid man . He is ex

pressing his higher, his real, self.Love always finds the God in us, because it

refuses to see anything else . Where there isapparently only a weakling or a coward, lovesees a hero . It sees the good citizen, the good

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1 7 4 LOVE’ S WAY

sees the soul, the reality of the child, the truthof its being. She sees the superb woman inpossibility, and makes all sorts of sacrifices sothat her loved ones shall develop into the menand women God meant them to be .The wife, who is faithful in spite of manydisillusions and disappointments, does not seeIn the man she loves the dishonest, brutal, lustful husband . She sees only her ideal of manhood, the possibilities that still are his . Thehusband does not see in the woman he marriedthe nagging, gossiping, mischief-making wife ;he sees only his ideal of womanhood ; he seeswhat love sees, only the good, only the pure,only the true, only the ideal girl he first loved.

Love sees no evil, thinks no evil, knows noevil . It sees, thinks, knows only the good, thepure

,the clean, the true . Love goes through

the world radiating sunshine and gladness,purifying the atmosphere everywhere, neverseeing the bad in human beings because it istoo much occupied in looking for the good.

It is difficult to imagine what would becomeof the race if love did not see the ideal, the perfeet man

,the man God intended instead of the

burlesque man,the weak, deficient being that

THE MIRACLE WORKER 1 7 5

hatred and all forms of error have made himappear.Browning said, Love is energy of life .Love certainly is the greatest energy we knowanything about. It is love that moves theworld. No other human agency has been halfso powerful for good. No other can lift manto the divine .

OUR LITTLE BROTHERS AND SISTERS

I would not enter on my list of friends! Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,Yet wanting sensibility ! , the man

Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.

COWPER .

A FAM OUS dog trainer says, My dogs willdo anything to please me .” Beating is nogood . It only calls out resentment and re

s i stan ce. No matter how often they fail, hesays, his dogs will try over and over and overagain to do what he wants them to do, becausethey know that when they succeed they aregoing to get what they love so much, a lot of

petting and praise .Love has taken the wolf out of the dog andgiven us instead the most faithful and affec

ti on ate of animals . It has evolved our housecat from the ferocious wild cat. The same istrue of other domestic animals . Kindness hastrained the savage beasts of the jungle andforest and made them household pets, playmates and protectors of our children .

176

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1 781 LOVE’S WAY

ful face of a cow or a horse which has beenbrought up as a family pet . Such an imalswould no more step on or injure a child thanwe would ourselves . We love and trust them,

and they love and trust us in return.

Some time ago there was on exhibiti on i nNew York a young horse which could do themost marvelous things, and yet his trainer saidthat only four years before he had had a verybad disposition. He was fractious

,vicious,

would kick and bite and do all sorts of badthings . But four years of kindness had com

pletely transformed the vicious yearling coltinto one of the kindest and most affectionateanimals in the world. He was not only obedient and tractable, but had been trained todo all sorts of unusual things . He couldreadily count and reckon up figures

,and could

even spell many words,whose meaning he

seemed to understand . In fact, he seemed tobe capable of learning almost anything

,and

the whole secret of his transformation and rareintelligence was due to kindness and love . Histrainer said that in all the four years he hadtouched him with a whip but once.Years ago M r. Daniel Boyington proved

LITTLE BROTHERS AND SISTERS

to Texas cowboys, and others, that there wasa better way of taming and subduing horsesthan the old brutal way of literally “breakingthem.

“At first, says a writer, he was hooted andj eered at, and the news that

‘Uncle Dan wascoming’ was the signal for the larking cowboys to get together all the ‘ outlaws’ and condemn ed horses for miles around, anticipatinggreat sport i n seeing them ‘ do up the oldman’ or ‘ run the professor plumb out of thecorral . ’

“When they had seen ‘ the professor’ go intothe corral without whip, rope, or hackamore,and had seen him subdue, pet, saddle, bit, andride the most vicious horse in the bunch withinthree or four hours ; when they had seen thetrembling outlaw rub its nose against hisshoulder and eat out of his hand

,they said

that it was hypnotism or magic . They accusedhim of ‘ doping’ the horses, and privately of

fered him big bribes to tell them what charmor medicine he used.

‘Uncle Dan’ only Shook his head andlaughed, and his answer was always the same .‘

The only charm I use, boys, is the Golden

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Rule . Treat a horse as you would like to betreated if you were a horse yourself. Thereis never any need for any one to beat or abusea horse

,for there is no creature li ving more

faithful or lovmg, if you are only kind andpatient with him . Teach him to love and haveconfidence in you, and g1ve him time to findout what you want, then he will serve you notonly willingly, but gladly and proudly. Thebest charm that any man can use in breakinga horse is kindness .Someone has said that when a man reallygets religion” his horse soon finds it out. Yetit is a strange thing that many devoted churchmembers

,who firmly believe they are among

the “righteous are often cruel to their horses .And there is not a day that hundreds of thesenoble animals are not brutally maltreated inour city streets . How often do we see driversunmercifully beating and abusing poor tiredhorses who are doing their best to carry theircruel burdens ! But we utter no protest. Weknow it 1S wrong to allow the poor animalsto be abused

,but we are too cowardly to take

the chances of exposing ourselves to ridiculeor possible abuse from the driver, and pass

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1 82 ‘LOVE’ S WAY

understand. They thought her abnormal oreccentric.

Whether our unkindness or cruelty to theanimals below us in the scale of evolution isactive or passive

,we -will certainly have to

answer for it in this life or some other . ElbertHubbard goes so far as to say that : “When aman forgets his dumb brothers, and is deadto their fears, sufferings and agonies, he haslost his own soul . Am I my dumb brother’skeeper ! Certainly, yes, and thou shalt givean account of thy stewardship !I cannot see how anybody can gaze into thedepths of the eyes of a dog without seeingthere something akin to himself, somethingwhich responds to the deep within himself.For myself I can see there that which is onits way to something higher. I can see therea spirit of devotion, a Spirit of love which bespeaks the divine.How can you, how can anyone, abuse a dogwho the more you whip him the more desperately he clings to you ! Perhaps you havenever thought what you represent to him.

Did it never occur to you that you are hi sGod ; that he knows nothing higher than you,

LITTLE BROTHERS AND SISTERS 183

the source of his food, of all the affection heknows

, of everything he has ! So far as he: isconcerned you are the highest thi ng in the universe, and when you abuse him, his very senseof separateness from the greatest power heknows of makes him miserable. There is nohappiness for him until his conn ection wi th

you is re-established .

The next time you are tempted to abuseyour dog, your horse, or any dumb animal,just look into hi s eyes and see if you can’trecognize something there back of the brute,something which speaks through the animalthat is not animal . These dumb animals haverights which the Creator has given them, andwhich man is bound to respect, even as he isbound to respect the rights of his fellow-man .

When a boy, Theodore Parker once cameacross a tortoise and raised a stick to kill it,when something within whispered to him notto, that it was wrong to kill an innocent creature that had done. him no harm . He dropped

the stick, went home and told his mother ofthe incident. She made it the text of a talkwhich he said influenced his entire life.It is comparatively easy to create a senti

184 LOVE’ S WAY

ment of sympathy and love for these dumbanimals in growing children, and the creationof such a sentiment in youth will have a wonderful influence upon their after-li fe . Teachyour boy and your girl that a real man, a realwoman, always champions the cause of the i nnocent and helpless birds and ammals, that areally noble soul never injures or causes painto creatures who have no way of appealin gto him, who cannot plead their own cause ,whose very helplessness should enlist his sympathy and protection . All children should betaught that the Creator has put the loweranimals in our care and that He will hold usresponsible for our treatment of them. I be

lieve with Ella Wheeler Wilcox that“If

every child living to-day were made to realizethis sense of responsibility, and to feel sympathy, protection and love for the helpless animals, the deformed, sick or penniless humans,more than two-thirds of the sorrow, sufferingand sin on earth would vanish in one generation.

”

During the Spanish-American War an offi

cer in the United States army one day noticeda corporal in a colored regiment who was

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186 LOVE’S WAY

there is really nothing manly in killing thingsmerely for the fun of it ; that it is, on the contrary, infinitely more manly to champion thecause of the. hunted, to protect the birds andthe animals from inhuman slaughter .To take pleasure in killing innocent ammals

for sport is a relic of barbar i sm . How can

any’

human e man get real fun out of the sufferi ngs of a nimals, real fun from shooting themother of bear cubs, for instance, and seeingthe pathetic mourn i ng of these baby bears asthey climb upon theirdead mother and try toattract her attention ! H ow any man can finddelight in breaking the wing of a mother birdwhen he knows that the young nestlings arewaiting in the nest with wide open mouths fortheir mother ’s return is more than I can understand . Sportsmen do not seem to realize thatthe homes of these little creatures are j ust as

sacred to them as the hunters’ homes are to

them,yet they do not hesitate to break them

up by killing one or both the parents, leaving their young to suffer, perhaps die, fromneglect !

.What can we think of the degree of soulculture of people who will slaughter animals

LITTLE BROTHERS AND SISTERS 1 87

Si Inply to make a holiday for themselves ! I

often wonder if these people ever read thebeatitudes, especially that one which says,Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

” How can men who are notmerciful to poor innocent dumb animals ex

pect mercy themselves !

The time wi ll come, and very soon, whenthe man who takes pleasure in killing anything, who goes slaughtering for mere Sport,will be labelled i n human,

” and will be ostraci zed by all decent people . There are tens ofthousands of men who ten years ago, some evenfive years ago, delighted in hunting, who couldnot be induced to go hunting to-day. Manyof them have told me that they were ashamedto think they could ever have taken deli ghtin such savage Sport.Mr. W. .I . Stillman, once a sportsman,some tlme ago, in

“A Plea for Wild Animalswrote : “The ghastly memories of all the gameI ever in my wild life slaughtered do not giveme the pleasure which I have found in teaching a wild creature to forget his inheritanceof fear of mankind . Many trout have I luredfrom their deep hiding-places

,but none with

88 LOVE’ S WAY

the keen satisfaction I have had in teachinga trout to rise at recognition of my approachi ng footfall, to submit to my caressing, as ifhe were a creature of the air rather than ofthe mud.

”

What shall be said of those more coldblooded men and women who, not having theexcitement of the chase as an excuse, deserttheir domestic pets, and leave them to die ofstarvation, or to Suffer a cruel death in thestreets ! Not long ago the Society for the Preven ti on of Cruelty to Animals one summer,in the month of July, took into their custodyfifteen thousand dogs and cats, eleven hundredand seventy-five in on e day: Most of these,especially the cats, had been left by the1r owners, who had gone out of town for the summer,without any means of

\care or feeding. The

maj ority of these people were probably churchmembers who thought they had “got religion !

What a rebuke to such brutality is the storyof the kindness of a little untaught street Arabto a sick sheep . One who witnessed the incident tells how this young tatterdemalion, oneof a gang of boys on the street, went to a

water trough and several t imes filled hi s old

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190 LOVE’ S WAY

love that it have its full and recognized partin the Love Universal . Out of the symphonyof this Love Universal we would exclude notone life . We would have it there, voicing at‘ full-throated ease . ’ Until the Universe excludes it, n ot one life would we exclude fromour love, and, until the Universe can excludesomething of itself and still be a perfect Uni

verse, safe in its Love is every life which ithas hallowed into living ; and as beautifullysafe should it be and is it in the thinkings ofNew Thought.”

If we expect to commune with God, tocome into the consciousness of our union withHim, we must have the right mental attitudetoward all of His creatures . If we are torealize our oneness with God, we must reali ze our oneness with H i s creation . We mustlove His creatures as He loves them Wecannot hold the God-consciousness

,we cannot

expect God’s blessing, when we make sport ofkilling His dumb creatures, or when we arebrutal to them in any way, any more than wecan expect to get His blessing through ourprayer

,when at the same time we are taking

advantage of our employees, cheating them,

LITTLE BROTHERS AND SISTERS 1 91

by paying them such stingy salaries that theyare tempted to piece them out in illegitimateways .In the early history of the race might wasthe only recognized right. The weakest wasalways afraid of the strongest . There was nothought of the rights of dumb animals . Buta new order came with the Sermon on theMount . Love was born into the world andit is gradually teaching man that all life is one

,

and that what we call the “lower an imals” are

i n reality our little brothers and sisters .

THE THING THAT M AKES A HOM E

Better i s a dinner of herbs, where love i s, than a stalled ox

and hatred therewith—Prov.

The heart needs not for i ts heaven much space, nor manystars therei n, i f only the sta r of Love has arisen .—~R I CH TER .

H E is the happiest, be he ki ng or peasant,said Goethe,

“who finds peace in his home .That peace i s found only where the lovespirit dwells, the spirit of mutual helpfulnessand willing self-sacri fice. It may be withinthe four walls of a house, it may be in a tent,in a forest, on a prairie, or in a desert ; it maybe in a palace, or in a log cabin ; it may bein a manger in a stabley a s in the case of thechild Jesus and his mother ; it does not dependupon material things ; it is born of the spiritand is sustained only by friendship , love, andsympathy.

Some time ago while visiting friends I wasgreatly impressed by the influence of onemember of the family in creating this beautiful home spirit. Though only a young girl

192

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LOVE’S WAY

chivalrous, and I could n ot help thinking thata great deal of it was due to the Sister ’s lovefor them and theirs for her .One reason why a home like this is thesweetest, most beautiful spot on earth, 1s because Of the love atmosphere ; the harmoniousvibrations it starts give a blessed sensation ofrest, of peace, of security and power . The

moment we enter such a place we feel i tssoothing, reassuring, uplifti ng influence . Itproduces a feeling of mental poise, of serenitywhich we do not experience elsewhere .Where love and affection are habitually vi

brati ng through the cells of the body theyaffect both health and character . They imparta sweetness and strength, a peace and satisfaction that reinforce the whole being. Harmony soothes and strengthens . Discord lacerates and weakens . The. character of peoplewho keep themselves continually stirred upby discordant emotions 1s skeptical, unlovely,selfish . There is nothing outside of vice whichwill so quickly react on mind and body as living in an atmosphere of perpetual inharmonyand ill feeling.

D iscordant homes are responsible for more

THE THING THAT MAKES A HOM E 195

illness, as well as unhappiness, than almostany other one cause

!

. In families where thereis continual wrangli ng, faultfin di ng and nag

ging, someone is ill nearly all the time Itoften happens that a member of such a family,delicate

,sensitively organized, very impres

s i on able, suffers for years, while n o phys i ci an ,

at least no orthodox physician, can correctlydiagnose the case or give permanent relief, because the. trouble comes from the i nharmonyin the home .Some years ago I was one of an audience

which s eemed much di sgusted because thespeaker suggested that most of those presenthad probably come from hell, that is, a hellof discord in the home or in their business

, a

hell of unhappiness, a nagging, distrustful,criticising hell, a hell of hatred and j ealousyand utter misery. Yet he may not have beenfar wrong in his estimate, for there. are manypeople who h ave money enough to get anything they want except peace and happiness.These cannot be bought for money. An d somulti tudes of people are really living in hell ;that is, they are living amidst strife, j ealousies,and hatreds which drive love out of the home

,

196 LOVE’ S WAY

for love will not Stay where there is discord,it will not live with dissension .

Multitudes of rich people, are bitterly disappointed because love does not seem to ap

preci ate the value of money. They are surprised that it will live In a hovel with barefloors and pictureless walls, but will run awayfrom palatial mansions .I have in mind two homes which show love’sway In this respect. One is that of people invery moderate. circumstances, who can affordonly the simplest sort of furniture, and whosestyle of living is as unassuming as their surroundings . But the instant you enter thehouse, you feel that atmosphere, that i ndefinable something, which alone makes the truehome . The other is that of a multi-millionairein a fashionable quarter\of New York. Thereis everything in this mansion that money canbuy

,that the decorator or the artist can sug

gest. One sees on every side priceless worksof art, mural paintings, costly decorations,rare imported rugs, tapestries, all sorts ofluxuries and curios . The owner told me thathe paid hundreds of thousands of dollars fora few pieces of tapestry ; and his library, which

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198 LOVE’S WAY

has said, who knows how to put into a homethat i n defin able something whose virtue hasmade the poet say,

“The housetop rej oices andis glad .

”

Unfortunately, however, the wife, as well asthe husband, is sometimes responsible for theunhappiness of the family life and the com

plete wreckage of the home . Many a womanis so over-particular as a housekeeper, so wor

ried about little unimportant details that shedrives peace and harmony out of the home .Serenity, tranquillity Of mind, freedom fromthe things which distress and annoy

,the

sense of liberty, restfulness and poise that ahome should give, are ruled out by her everlasting nagging, her constant reminders toone and another of the family that theyhavedropped an envelope or a p i ece of paper onthe floor

,that they have brought in mud or

dust on their boots, that they have turned arug askew

,or that somebody’s hat or coat has

been forgotten on a chair . She not only makesa slave of herself, but in making everybodyelse toe the mark in accordance with her

strained ideas Of system and order, so d i scom

THE THING THAT MAKES A HOM E 1 99

forts her husband and children that they failto get the things the. real home affords .The woman who makes her husband andchildren un comfortable and herself an irritable, nervous wreck, may thin k she i s an cffi

cient housekeeper, but as a homemaker she isan utter failure . More than that, she actuallyloses, or at least lessens , the. love and respectof the fami ly she tries so hard in her mistakenway to serve . She never succeeds in makin gher family think home as the dearest andsweetest place in the world . On the contrary,just as soon as the evening meal is over, thefather and children are anxious to get out .of

it . They constantly fin d some excuse to runaway to other people ’s houses or to some placewhere the atmosphere is of a diff erent nature .There can be n o real comfort or happinesswhere there is a constant sense of restraint .The home which does not give its members perfect freedom and ease is never a magnet to theweary heart, a Vi s i on of rest and j oy to thehomesick traveler .One of the things that causes so much un

happiness i n married life and drives love outof the home is the effort of a wife or a hus

200 LOVE’S WAY

band, arbitrarily, to change the other in somepoint, whether it be in regard to a trivial faultor habit, or something of great importance.I have known wives to make the mistake oftrying to make their husbands over byalwayshammeringaway at their faults, their defici encies, always reminding them of their weaknesses, i nstead of praising their strong points,lauding

'

their good qualities, and appealing tothe best in them. Nagging and faultfin di nghave never yet changed anyone, except forthe worse . You cannot sandpaper a husbandall the time, scold and criticize him constantly,without arousing a fatal protest.When a wife is constantly picturing theawful results of her husband’s drinking habits,or other greater or minor vices, and tellinghim what the result will be if he does notquit

, she arouses in him a spirit of antagonism,

and completely loses her influence over him .

Every man resents this sort of treatment. Itis human nature to defend ourselves when at

tacked,to resist bein g driven or being com

pelled to be good. We can only be led to giveup that which is bad by the substitution ofsomething better .

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202 LOVE’ S WAY

who is regarded as a model in his place ofbusiness and by his associates generally. Hei s even - tempered, cool and self controlledabroad, popular in his club, always generouswith assistance for any public cause, his namebeing usually one of the first on subscriptionlists of all sorts . In short, he stands very highi n his community as a public-spirited citizen,a model man in all respects . But at homethere is a very different story. Here he. throwsoff all restraint and plays the hog. He thinkshe i s under no obligation to practice self-control, to be a gentleman in his home . He evidently says to himself,

“Isn’t this my home !

D idn’t my money build it ! Doesn’t my moneymaintain it ! Don’t I pay the bills here ! Isn’teverybody here dependent upon me ! Whyshould I feel any restraint in my own home !

Certainly there ought to be one place in the

world where a man can say what he thin ks,express his feelings .”

He is a hard worker, and usually comeshome from business very much used up, oftenpretty nearly a nervous wreck, and he certai nly takes it out on his family. He will oftenbelch forth a volley of scolding just as soon

.TH E THING TH AT MAKES A HOM E 203

as he enters the house. If he sees anythingout of place, anything broken, anything i njured, he makes it an excuse for his outburst.The children get frightened when they see athun dercloud on his face

,and when he begins

ranting like a madman they all run away andget out of sight . This makes him still morefurious, and he will often follow them all overthe house, and call them to account for insulting him when he i s tryi ng to correct them, to

set them straight .This man’s wife is a gentle, sensitive womanwho dreads a scene. and will do almost anything to avoid one . But if a servant happensto break a piece of china, or if the cook burnsthe food, if anything lacks the proper flavor,or if anything else goes wrong, no matter howtrifli ng, he will break out right In the mi ddleof a meal, and scold and rave like a maniac .In fact he makes a hades of his home, stirseverybody in it up , and creates an atmospherethat makes peace and happiness impossible.There are a great many of these men who

are gentlemen outside their homes,in their

places of business, in their clubs, anywhere in

public, but hogs in the home. Perhaps they

204 LOVE ’S WAY

don’t realize that they are cowards and bullies .But of course every hog in the home knowsthat his wife and children do not dare to answer him back or call him to account. Hekn ows they are helpless ; that they must lethim rave and abuse until his temper has spentitself, and bear it as best they can . Perhapshe doesn’t know that he arouses their contempt, and that he cannot hold the affectionof his family when he treats them in this way.

The mental attitude of an angry teacherwill cause a whole schoolroom to vibrate inunison with her mood. The same is true ofthe home . One discordant member, by hissurly or antagonistic attitude, will destroy itsharmony for a whole evening. I have knownthe peace Of an entire household to be brokenup for the day because the father grew angryover something in the morning and got everybody so stirred up that harmony was not establi shed even after he left the house .The very foundation of our national life, ofprogress, of happiness, of true success is laidin the' home. At the bottom of all a man’shopes is his dream of wife and child and home.No matter What hardships he endures , how

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206 LOVE’S WAY

Unhappily, it is not always questions of importance or grave faults on either side thatruin the happiness of husband and wife andbreak up the home or fill it With perpetual dis

cord. It i s trivial matters,the daily pinpricks

,

the little worries that continually rub one the

wrong way. A nagging, worrying man orwoman can destroy the peace of a householdand make every one in it m i serable . Pettyfault-findi ngs, bickerings, misunderstandi ngsabout tri fles, these are the little foxes whichfrequently destroy the home vines .The happiness of the home, the conduct andwelfare of the children depend on a happymarriage . And the happiest marriages arethose in which husband and wife recognize andaccept each other ’s differences, and try to fitinto one another, as it were. This is reallythe divine plan, for man and woman are thecomplement of each other.George E liot says,

“What greater thing isthere for two human souls than to feel thatthey are j oined for life, —to strengthen eachother in all labor, to rest on each other in allsorrow

,to minister to each other in all pain,

THE THING THAT MAKES A HOM E 207

to be one with each other in silent,unspeak

able memories at the last parting ! ”

When a man and woman are united in thisspirit

,when they maintain this attitude in all

their trials and diffi culties they will have ahappy home though it be within the four wallsof one room or in a dugout on a Western

prairie.

! VII

STRANGER, WH Y SHOULD I NOT SPEAKTo YOU !

”

STRANGER,if you passing meet me and de

sire to speak to me, why should you not speakto me ! And why should I not speak to you ! ”

says Walt Whitman .

This would be love ’s way . But conventionsteps in and says,

“No, you must not speakto strangers , and we obey.

Time and time. again, when I meet our soldiers and sailors on the street, my first impulseis to offer them my hand and express my gratitude for the great debt which I personally owe

them . I know that these boys are giving upthei r vocation, their chosen career, their home,those dearer to them than life

,to fight for me,

and it seems coldblooded to pass them without any sign of recognition. But the ironhabit of convention too often strangles mynatural impulse, and I pass them by withouta word or Sign of recognition, or of my feelingtoward them. I never do so, however, Wi thout

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2 10 LOVE ’ S WAY

There is something inhuman, unnatural, inthe idea that we cannot speak to anyone until

we have been formally introduced. Meeting

strangers ought to be something like a brotheror a sister going back to the old home after

many years of absence and finding n ewbrothers and sisters who were not there when theywent away. Many of the people we don’t

know In the conventional way may be more

akin to us in tastes and ideals than some of the

members of our own family. I very oftenmeet people whose faces tell me that they are

not only brothers and sisters because we be

long to the same great human family, but be

cause we are sympathetically related— relatedby our mental affi nity. My heart goes out tothem spontaneously. I long to stop and tell

them that I want to know them . Somethingin their faces attracts me . I can read there ahistory which interests me wonderfully. I

know there is something there for me, and if

so there must be something in me which wouldinterest and perhaps help them . They notonly have a kindly expression, but they oftenlook as though they knew what I was thinking

WH Y SHOULD I NOT SPEAK To YOU !”2 1 1

and really felt sorry that custom forbade our

speaking to each other.Some will obj ect that the custom of speak

ing to strangers, regardless of whether weknow anything about them, would lead to all

sorts of unfortunate results, especially forgirls . And I answer that it doeS not ‘do so

where it is practised in the South ; and it wouldnot do so in large cities if it were made thegeneral custom . A pleasant recognition, asmile or a friendly greeting, does not, ofcourse, mean that we go Off with strangers , orthat girls would allow themselves to be ledastray by strange men .

During my first visit to a Southern town,after living in New York many years , I wasmuch pleased and surprised at the cordialityof people, even to strangers on the street . Thefirst time I passed through the streets, manypeople whom I had never seen before bowedpolitely to me

,and the colored men would

raise their hats . The whole atmosphere of cord i ali ty, of friendliness, was such a contrast tothe cold atmosphere of New York that it madea lasting impression on me . Ever since I have

2 12 LOVE’ S WAY

really thought I would like to live in this littleSouthern city— Staunton

,Va .

The American and English people partienlarly are cold and stony when coming in contact with strangers . I have sat down at atable in a hotel or restaurant opposite Englishspeaking people who made me feel that I wasintruding. They seemed to wish that I wouldget out of their way, that it was a piece ofimpudence on my part to sit down at the sametable with them .

On the other hand, when traveling in someContinental countries,especially in France, ifwe enter a restaurant and sit down, those sitting opposite us at the table

,or perhaps at

tables nearby, smile politely and thus make usfeel at home . Some of the brightest experi

en ces of my life have come from travelingin strange lands and meeting strangers whocould not even speak my language

,but who

would give me such a friendly greeting in theirfacial expression as to make me feel that wewere real friends .How different it is in our country ! New

York men tell me that they have passed mennearly every day for years

,without ever speak

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2 14 LOVE’ S WAY

strangers for some silent message of sympathywhich helped us on our way— smiles

, en cour

aging appreciative looks, kindly acts, a radiation of love that made us conscious of their

sympathy and kinship . I meet one of thesekindly strangers almost every day in thestreets of New York, a man who reflects somuch love and good cheer in his face, that, although he doesn’t speak, he makes me feel thathe would like to

,that only custom, not inclina

tion, keeps him from doing so .Dickens says “no one is useless in the worldwho lightens the burden of it for anyone else .The man or woman who has a kindly feelingfor everyone is a universalhelper . Most of usvery much overestimate the possibilities ofmoney to help . What people want most of allis sympathy

,the touch of brotherhood. This is

what inspires,encourages, uplifts . It fills a

need that money cannot touch . A church i n

vestigator tells how fully he realized this whencalling on a poor old soul whom he found on apallet of straw in an attic . When he asked herwhat she needed most he thought she would

say Bread, coal, covering, for she lacked all

WH Y SHOULD I NOT SPEAK To YOU ! ” 2 1 5

of these. But no, her answer was Folks .Someone to talk to me . I am lonely !How many lonely souls there are longingfor sympathy, the solace of human companionship, which no material things can supply !Everywhere we see people starving for love,fami shing for affection, for someone to appreciate them. We see men and women possessing material comfort, luxury, all that can contribute to their physical well-being—they are

able to gratify almost any wish— and yet theyare hungry for love . They seem to haveplenty of everything but affection .

There are rich women who would give alltheir wealth for the love of a good, clean man,or of a little child. And there are millionaireswhose lives are barren because there is no lovein them . Everywhere we see the love-starvedexpression in the faces of all sorts and conditions of people . Many of them are rich inlands and houses, automobiles, yachts, horses,money— i n everything but love !Children should be reared to think that weare all related one to another, that human beings are the same family, because they have thesame Father-Mother-God, and that because

216 LovE’

s WAY

they do not happen to have been introducedto each other i s no .reason why they should

not speak.

When we do this, men and women wi ll not,as they do now, coldly pass people by who lookas though they were really longmg for fr i endship , famishing for sympathy, for love whichmany would gladly give them if there were nosocial ban upon recognizing or speaking tostrangers .There is a fruitful suggestion for helpingothers, no matter how poor we may be, in thethought that the spirit of kindness, of goodwill, is a great radiating force that reaches outto other souls and gives them strength and uplift though we may not even speak to them.

Certainly in our own little sphere it is notthe most active people to whom we owe themost,

” says Phillips Brooks . “Among the

common people whom we know it is not n ecessari ly those who are busiest, not those who,meteorlike, are ever on the rush after somevisible charge and work . It is the lives

,like

the stars which simply pour down on us thecalm light of their bright and faithful being,up to which we look and out of which we

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2 18 LOVE’S WAY

There is no one so poor or so helpless thathe cannot hold a helpful and encouraging mental attitude toward others, who cannot giveof his sympathy to the lonely soul who ishungering for human companionship . Wecan all cherish the aspiration of George E liot,and say with her :

M ay I reachThat purest heaven, be to other soulsThe cup of strength in some great agony,Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,Be the sweet presence of a good d i ffusedAnd in diffusion ever more intense !So shall I join the choir invi sibleWhose music i s the gladness of the world

XVIII

I SERVE TH E STRONGEST

As love pours out in service, God pours inAn d, 10 , to us comes spac i ousness of soul.

HUGH AN TH ONY ALLEN .

AN old world legend tells of a powerfulgiant whose motto was “I serve the strongest .”

At first he served the mayor of his town, untilhe discovered that the mayor was under a dukewho was far more powerful than he . Thereupon he left the mayor to serve the duke,until he found that the latter had to obey on egreater than any duke, the emperor. Thenhe transferred his allegiance to the emperor,whom he served until one day he heard h imsay that he was afraid of the devil .What ! you afraid of the devil !” cried the

giant . “Is the emperor afraid of anything !

Is there anyone stronger than the emperor !

If so, I will serve him.

”

Leaving the emperor, he hunted for thedevil, whom he found and served . But hesoon learned that the devil was afraid of some

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2 20 LOVE’ S WAY

one more powerful than himself, -the Christ .For a long time he sought the Christ . Oneday

,while still seeking, in a deep wood he met

an old man who told him to serve his fellowmen ,

and that in this way he would serve the

strongest power there was .Following the old man’s advice, the giantbegan to ferry people across a river that flowedclose by the cabin in which he lived. This riverwas very treacherous, and in its dangerouswaters many people had lost their lives .One stormy night the giant heard a rap onhis cab i n door. Opening it he found a littlegirl, who wanted to get across the river. The

giant told her it was the time of the Springfloods, and that if he attempted to cross hisboat would be swamped and she would bekilled by the sharp floating ice with which theriver was almost covered. But the child i nsisted she must get across that night, and thatif he would not row her to the other side Shemust go alone .The giant lighted his lantern and togetherhe and the child got into his boat and pushedout into the swirling waters . The wind soonblew out the lantern, and they were in utter

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222 LovE’

s WAY

during the day, but the man performed hisusual household tasks, and while preparing hispot of cabbage soup, the Russian peasant

’sdaily dish, he would look out into the stormwith expectant eyes .Presently he saw a poor pedler, wi th a.

pack on his back, struggling forward againstthe fierce icy blasts that alrnost overwhelmedhim . The kind-hearted peasant rushed outand brought the wayfarer into his cabin . Hedried his clothing, shared his cabbage soupwith him, and started him on his way againwarmed and comforted.

Looking out again he saw another traveler,an old woman, trying feebly to hold on herway against the blinding storm. Her alsohe took into his cabin, warmed and fed her,wrapped his own coat about her

,and, strength

ened and encouraged, sent her rejoicing on herway.

Darkness began to fall, but still no Sign ofthe Master . H Opmg against hope the manonce more went to his cabin door, and look ingout into the night he saw a little child, who wasutterly unable to make its way against theblinding sleet and snow. Going out he took

“I SERVE THE STRONGEST” 223

the half-frozen child in his arms, brought itinto the cabin

, , warmed and fed it, and soonthe little wayfarer fell asleep before the fire .Bitterly disappointed at the Master ’s nonappearance, the peasant sat gazing into thefire, and as he gazed he fell asleep . Suddenlythe room was radiant with a light that di dnot come from the fire

,and there stood the

Master, white-robed, and serene, looking uponhim with a smi le . “Ah, Master, I have waitedand watched all this long day

,but thou did’st

not come .” The Master replied,“Three times

have I visited thy cabin to-day. The poorpedler whom thou rescued

,warmed and fed,

that was I ; the poor woman to whom thougavest thy coat, that was I ; and this little childwhom thou hast saved from the tempest, thati s I . Inasmuch as ye have done it unto theleast of these, you have done it unto me .

”

Someone says,“The greatest thing a man

can do for his heavenly Father is to be kindto some of his other children .

” Whenever wedo a kin dness to another we are literally Obeying Christ

’s command to hi s disciples : “A newcommandment give I unto you, that ye loveone another ; as I have loved you love ye also

2 24 LOVE’ S WAY

one another. In love and service to one another lies the salvation of the world .

“I serve‘

the strongest,” would make a splen

did life motto . For to serve the strongest isto serve God, which consists in helping theweakest, —all those who need our help .

Many of us do not realize the great valueand importance of even the most trifling serv1ce un selfishly rendered a fellow being. Wedo not realize that the habit of kindness, ofun selfishly serving another whenever we can,will not only benefit those we serve, but it willhelp ourselves even more . It will make ourown lives richer, fuller, stronger, than the livesof the self-centered ever can be .I recall a man whose life is a good illustration of this . He has hosts of friends andeverybody loves him for his genial, helpfulways . He believes that every helpful suggestion and every uplifting thought implanted inthe mind of youth are seeds sown in promisingsoil and that every time he meets a boy or girlhe must sow some of this seed . He has made ita life rule to try to inspire

,to encourage every

young person he meets .If it be a youth with a deficient education,

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2 26 ELOVE’

S WAY

warned him that it would mean death if he appeared on the battlefield at that time on such

an errand. But the youth put no value on hislife, and out he went amid shot and shell withhis pail of water, going from soldier to soldier,straightening cramped and mangled limbs,putting knapsacks under the heads of sufferers, spreading cloaks and blankets over them,

just as though they had been his own comrades . The soldiers of both armies watchedthe youth as he performed his work of mercy,and they were so touched by the di vine courage that heeded not the guns, the roar of thecannon, or the bursting shells all about him,

that they ceased firing at each other . For an

hour and a half there was a virtual truce wh i lethe boy in gray went over the entire battlefieldupon his errand of love, giving drink to thethirsty

,and comfort to the mangled and the

dying. Was there a more beautiful incidentthan this in the Civil War !

Love has no fear because it is unmindful ofself. It thinks only of the welfare of others,of relieving suffering wherever it sees it . Itsphysical courage in exposing itself to personal

“I SERVE THE STRONGEST” 227

harm is only equaled by its moral courage inbraving comment or criticism .

A Boston lady,while doing her Christmas

shopping,noticed on the street, collecting con

tri buti on s for the poor, a Salvation Army girlwho looked very cold and tired . The ladyasked her if she would not like to rest and havesomething to eat . The girl said shewas veryhungry and tired, but that she could not leaveher post . Whereupon the lady offered to takethe gir l’s pole standard and pot, and sent heraway to a restaurant for a warm dinner andrest . The curious passing crowd stopped tolook at the well-dressed woman with handsomefurs rmgmg the bell by the Salvation Armycontribution pot . And guessing the obj ect ofher presence there, they began to put in theirnickels and dimes

,and many a dollar bill also

went into the pot . Friends and acquaintancesof the temporary collector passed while shestood there, and, knowing her kindly heart,added their contributions, so that the pot helda goodly sum that night .A spectator remarked that not one woman

i n a thousand would have done that . But whynot ! Why shouldn’t we all do such things !

2 28 LOVE’ S WAY

The most beautiful thing in the world is spontan eous service, kindly acts of love and serviceto one another. “I wonder,

” says someone,“why it is that we are not all kinder than weare ! How much the world needs it. Howeasily it is done . How instantaneously it acts .How infallibly it is remembered . How superabundantly it pays itself back— for there is nodebtor in the. world so honorable, so superblyhonorable, as love .

‘Love never faileth .

’ Lovei s success, love is happiness , love is life .Happiness has been defined as “great love

and much service . It is certain that no effortswe may ever make can bring such splendidreturns as the endeavor to scatter the flowersof love and service as we go along, to plantroses instead of thorns ; no investment will paysuch rich dividends as kind words and kindlyacts

,the effort to radiate a loving spirit toward

every living creature .There are some great-hearted souls who arealways giving out of their best without anythought of getting a return . They are alwaysunconsciously serving the strongest.I have read of one of these, a poor man who

dreamed one night that he went to Paradise,

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2 30 LOVE’ S WAY

poor people even before you had a home ofyour own, and . continually made sacrifices ofyour own comfort, in order to give of yournecessities to help others ! ”

“These and many other things like them,

added the angel,“are what brought you here .

You came because you had a right to ; you belong here .”

“But,

” still protested the embarrassed,man,

I never founded colleges, or hospitals, or gavemoney to charitable institutions, as Mr . Blank,the man for whom I worked

,did.

”

“Ah,” said the angel,

“it is not these thingswhich the rich and powerful give out of theirabundance that gain entrance here ; it is thelittle nameless acts of kindness and love, theself-sacri fici ng service performed in the common ordinary situations in life ; it is the lovethat gives itself, the spiri t of un selfishn ess, thatopens the gates of Paradise to mortals .”

Marcus Aurelius said that the more we lovethe nearer we are to God . Of course, he meantlove in the highest, the truest, and the purestsense.When we love thus, and are the most just,the most honest, the purest and cleanest we

I SERVE TH E STRONGEST

know how to be, we are the nearest todivinity. Such Olove puts us in touch withthe best. It allies us with all that is beautiful,noble, highest, and most unselfish ; with theloftiest sentiments, the highest principles, allthat is finest in life . It is the golden key whichgives us access to the holy of holies . This loveis, indeed, the connecting link between manand his God.

! I !

TH E DAILY ORIENTATION

EVENTUALLY it will be possible to telephone completely around the globe. You maysit i n one booth and speak into a receiver, whileanother man sits in the next booth and waitsfor your words .

“Your voice will go to San Francisco, say,by wire . I t wi ll leap the P acific through theai r and be returned to another wire . It willcross Europe by wire, then span the Atlan ti c

through the ether and return to another wirehere in New York, which will lead it to yourfriend a few feet away.

”

This prediction by the wireless expert,Ban

croft Gherardi, engineer of the AmericanTelephone and Telegraph Company’s NewYork plant, amazing as it is, will, withoutdoubt, be fulfilled when the world war is over.How will this be accomplished ! On pre

ci sely the same principle as the voice is carriedby telephone to the next room to us or only afew miles away.

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234 LOVE’S WAY

tions which originated in the hatred, the envy,or the j ealousy of others .Through wireless connection, scientists onland can explode a torpedo away out at sea .So we can

—

send our thoughts, good thoughtsor Vicious thoughts, out into the un iversal etherto bless or curse both ourselves and others .Although they may be far away from us, wecan make other people very miserable, or wecan make them happy. We, in turn, unlessVery firmly centered in God— rendered immune by D ivine Love— are seriously aff ectedby other minds .We live in the midst of all sorts of currentsand cross-currents of other people ’s thoughts,and every time we fear, or worry, or doubt, orhate

,we make connection with the currents

of the fears, the worries, the doubts, the hatreds of others, which then flow in upon us

and add to our misery.

On the other hand, when our thought con

n ects us with the love current ; when we sendout vibrations Of courage, of faith, of love, weare reinforced by similar vibrations flowing inon us from every side .Vibrat i on i s i nseparable from life . Almost

THE DAILY ORIENTATION 23 5

everything in li fe can be accounted for by itsrate of vibration. For example, all shades ofcolor are due to different rates of Vibration ofthe ether upon our optic nerve . Without thisvibration there would be no such thing as color.The same thing is true of sound . Musicalsounds, all sounds of every kind, are due todifferent rates of vibration which impinge uponthe auditory nerve, each rate of Vibrationarousing a different sensation in the brain .

Every atom in the universe is in a vibratorystate, is forever revolving around some center .The moon revolves around the earth, the earthrevolves around the sun at an inconceivablespeed, and the sun is whirling around an i nfinitely greater orbit at a speed which staggersthe imagination

,while every atom and every

electron in all these bodies is revolving aroundi ts own little individual center .The sun’s heat, which sustain s our earth life,is simply vibration. It would be absurd tosuppose that the sun could transmit heat ninety

-three mi llions of miles . What we call heatis a form of energy vi bration . The sun givesthe initial impulse, no one knows how, to some

236 LOVE’S WAY

sort of energy which is transmitted to the earthby Vibration .

Every life is Vibratory movement, and thequality of our lives is determined by the quality and the rate of our vibrations . Harmonious vibrations mean health, happiness, cfh

ci en cy, success . Discordant vibrations meanstrangulation, discord, thwarted ambition, awrecked career .If we live in the midst of discordant vibrations which are antagonistic to one another, lifewill be whittled away at a terrific rate . If, onthe other hand

,we keep ourselves in tune with

the infinite harmonies, we shall preserve theharmonious action of our brain, our nerves, ourmental and physical being, and this harmonywill heal, will increase our power, our success,and our happiness .We are consciously Or unconsciously con

ti nually being acted upon by vibrations fromwithin and without . Every person we meet,everything we hear or read, our environment,every act

,every hidden motive, every thought,

every mood,every emotion, starts vibrations

which play through the billions of cells in ourbody, and the influence exactly corresponds to

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238 LOVE’ S WAY

by your cancer horror, by your fear of anydisease

,will reproduce themselves in the tis

sues of your system.

It is well known that pessimists are never inas good health as optimists . Pessimistic vibrations are destroyers . Your fear thought ofdisease sets in motion discordant vibrationswhich correspond with your thought . Hopeand expectancy start constructive vibrations,while fear and doubt start destructive vibrations . Harmonious vibrations are alwaysbuilding for harmony and wholesomeness ; thediscordant vibrations

“

for just the Opposite .Every human being makes his own world byhis thoughts . The vibrations we start determine what sort of a world i t shall be . Twopeople who belong to the same family, liveunder the same roof, under the same influences,may be farther apart than the poles of theearth . No two people in the same environment live in the same world

,because their

thoughts, the1r motives, their emotions, theiracts , connect them with their affinity currents .One of them may live in the current of reality,truth, love and helpfulness, while the othermay live in the Vilest current of thought

, be

TH E DAILY ORIENTATION

cause his own thinkin g connects himwith otherminds on this same plane .S imilarly, a coarse, sensual mind is con

stan tlymaking connectionswith like minds until thought currents make an irresistible forceto drag him down to lower and lower depths .A community is often shocked at the rapidity with which a wayward girl— a girl who hasbeen well reared—goes to her utter ruin . Itdoesn’t seem possible that any human beingwho had had any kind of moral training coulddeteriorate so rapidly as some girls do whenthey begin to go wrong. The reason is, theybegin to make mental connection with thosewho are steeped in vileness . In other words,their own little diverted thought stream is reinforced by the great current of impurity withwhich they make wireless connection.

In a similar way, the youth who begins tofall away from right standards by dwellingupon the criminal thought

,the criminal act,

contemplating these things, makes connectionswith the criminal thought currents

,and before

he realizes it he is swept off his feet and commi ts a crime Then he becomes one of thecriminal class .

240 LOVE’ S WAY

We are In the habit of thinking of ourselvesas alone, as individual units, but we are reallyconnected with all other minds which have thesame rate of Vibration as ours . We form partof an unseen, Vibrating current, and we areconstantly increasing the strength of this wi reless current by making connections with whoever or whatever has the same mental or moralvibration with ourselves .When we are In tune with the Infinite wefeel tremendously reinforced by the mightymomentum of all that is good and pure andclean and true . We feel sustained, buttressedand supported, because we are in wi reless conn ecti on with everything that is like God ; thatis, we are in tune with Him. But when wemake a wireless connection with the devil orwhatever typifies evil

,we relate ourselves to

all the forces of evil, we are in a downward current that every moment gathers momentum todrag us down .

What a wonderful help it would be in our

educational training and character building ifthe invisible currents

,radiating from other

minds with which we make connection, couldbe made Visible, like a panorama or picture,

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242 LovE’

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message the Creator intends for us, mustmakeourselves immune to all of the conflicting currents which are constantly bombarding ourmentality. We must shut out the Vicious currents, the worry currents, the j ealous currents,the selfish, the fear currents, the hatred andrevenge ‘ currents . If we want to receive thedivine message, the love thought currents,vibrations that will build

,that will inspire,

that will encourage,vibrations which will help

us to achieve the things Worth while, which .

will enable us to be what we long to be, wemust shut out all thoughts, all vibrations thattear down, that blacken and defile the mind,that weaken and handicap both mind andbody.

What sort of vibrations are you now sendingout—harmonious or discordant ! Are yousending out hate vibrat i ons ; lustful, sensualVibrations ; selfish, greed vibrations ; envious,j ealous vibrations ; or are you radiating an at

mosphere of hope, j oy, and gladness ! Areyou radiating sunshine or black shadows ! Areyou sending out harmonious and happy vibrations, vibrations of expectancy of better things,vibrations of encouragement, or are you send

THE DAI LY ORIENTATION 2 43

ing out vibrations which will arouse discord,pain, doubt, fear and worry !

Remember that whatever you send out willcome back to you in kind . If you are notattuned to the highest and the best in you ; ifyour wireless instrument is attuned Instead todiscord, you will take off all of the d i scordan tcross—currents that are floating in the boundless sea of thought . You will thus blackenand cripple other lives as well as your own,for since every thought vibration makes wireless conn ection with others like itself, yourvibration goes on repeating itself, and neverceases until it has visited and affected numberless other minds .No man lives to himself alone . We cannoteven think without affecting others, either forgood or ill . How important it is , then, to startonly vibrations which will have a ben eficen tinfluence .Everyone can direct and control his thoughtcurrents . He can send out and draw to himself whatever manner of thought he wills . Noone is at the mercy of his thought . No oneneed be a victim of the distressing, discouraging thought currents and cross-currents

244 LovE’

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which are flying in every direction from otherminds .If you will, you can get yourself in tunewith your Infinite Source ; in tune with truth,with beauty,

“ with love, with helpfulness , withkindness, in tune with everything that is unselfish, uplifting, clean and true . You can,if you will, learn to cut out all harmful vibrations, all destructive, conflicting thoughts andimaginings

,and make yourself immune to

them.

In other words , i t _ is possible for all whowill take the trouble to get in tune with thehighest thing in them to live in life’s paradi seInstead of its hades most of the time, as somany of us do .The churches use sacred music as a sort of

tuning-up process for worshipers, to preparethe mind for sacred things, sensitizing it sothat it may be more impressionable, more sens i ti ve to the lessons from the pulpit . Whenthe soul is wrought up with music there is awireless connection between it and its Author—the;greatAuthor of harmony and rhythmical laws—th! Author of all law, of all creation .

If the worshipers who throng the churches

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2 46 LOVE’

s WAY

keynote for the day the first thing when weawake in the morning.

You know how a singer gets his keynote .He uses a tuning-fork or strikes a key on anorgan or piano in order to key the voice andthe instrument to the. right keynote, sothattheir Vibrations will harmonize, instead of confl i cti ng with each other and making discord.

Now, in a similar way, when we wish to getour minds in tune with t he Infinite In strument, we must use certain mental tuning-forkswhich will tend to gi ve like vibrati ons, vibrations that will harmonize .The greatest of these tun ing-forks is love .No other will so quickly bring the vibrationsof the human heart into unison with the I nfin i te

’

s pulsations . Love keys the mind topeace, poise, truth, beauty, purity, un selfishness

,honesty, justi ce— all that harmonizes with

divine principles .The heart attuned to love, filled to overflowing with love of God and man, has n o roomfor bitterness

,malice, pettiness or meanness

of any sort. Where the love thought is dominant

,there are n o discordant Vibrations . It

would be impossible,because love is the su

THE DAI LY ORIENTATION 247

!preme harmonizer, the great peacemaker. Thelove Vibrations are healing balm for all thatblights happiness or produces discontent . Theyneutralize all selfishness, envy, j ealousy, hatred, all of the brutal, baser passions and pro

pen si ti es .

When we Open our minds to the inflow ofdivine love, we will have no diffi culty in keeping our mi nds in harmony with the best thingin us . Then we are in tune with the Infiniteand make connections with all the peaceful,happy currents from other peaceful, happyminds, and so multiply our strength and effici en cy. For harmony is strength and effici en cy.

Eastern philosophers have a beautiful custom which they call orienting themselves .When they rise in the morning they turn theirfaces toward the sun

,raise their thoughts to

the Supreme Being, and open every avenueof their minds to the beauty of love, of truth,and of all the divine influences .At the very moment of waking they shutout from their minds every sordid thought

,

every selfish thought, everything that wouldconflict with their orientation . Nothing is suf

2 48 LovE’

s WAY

fered to clog the mental and spiritual avenues,and they get the full benefit of the flood ofdivine influences which flow in upon them.

In this way they prepare themselves for theday, put themselves in tune for the daily routine, the particular spiritual work, the spiritualcontemplation or meditation which follows the“orientation,

” and for all the life of the day .

Here i s an excellent suggestion for findingthe keynote of your day. When you get up111 the morning turn your face toward the sun .

Imagine it as a symbol of divine love. Thinkof the sun as one of the great marvels of theCreator, given you to bring light, health, j oyand beauty into your life . Breathe deeplyand take in deep draughts of beauty, of love,and of truth. Make this a daily habit and youwill be surprised to see how the beauty of itwill grow on you, and how quickly this dailyuplifting of your spirit will tend to purify andrefreshen, renew and recreate your wholenature .You may adopt any method you choose ofdirecting and controlling your mental vibrations . But once you acquire the habit of getting your wireless instrument i n tune daily to

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SCATTER YOUR FLOWERS AS YOU GO

THERE i s nothing else quite so pathetic asthe post-mortem kindness so often manifestedby people who thought they had no time tobe kind to their loved ones while they were

Many a man has piled more flowers on thecoffin of wife or mother than he ever gave herduring her lifetime . I have known men who,because of a sense of remorse, spent moremoney on their mother’s funeral than theyspent on all the presents they ever gave herwhile she was living.

The Youth’

s Compan i on tells of a youn ggirl, beautiful, gay, full of spirits and vigorwho was married and had four children . Later,the husband died penniless and the mothermade the. most heroic efforts to educate herchildren . She taught school

,sewed, painted,

did all sorts of things to earn money to sendthe girls to boarding school, and the boys tocollege .

SCATTER YOUR FLOWERS 2 5 1'

When the girls came home, pretty, refined,intelligent, educated, and the strong youngmen, blessed with all the new ideas of theirtime

,the mother was a worn-out, faded old

woman . The chi ldren went their own way,had their own homes, their own interests, andthe poor mother was neglected . Thin gs wentalong in this way for several years un til finally she was attacked with serious braintrouble

,aggravated, no doubt, by di sappoint

ment, a sense of loneliness and a lack of appreci ati on from her children which she had alwaysfancied she would get in her old age .The shock woke them to a consciousness oftheir neglect . They all rushed to her assistance in her last hours, and, in an agony ofgrief, hung over her as she lay unconscious .One son, holding her in his arms, said to her,“You have been such a good mother to us .” Themother ’s face showed a little color. Once moreshe Opened her eyes and whispered

,

“Younever said so before, John, then the light diedout of her eyes and she was gone

,leaving her

children, sobbing, conscience stricken . Theypiled flowers high on her coflCi n and gave hera costly fun eral .

25 2 LOVE’ S WAY

That was not love’s way. Love that is worththe name sends i ts flowers to the living. Itdoes n ot wait to heap them on the dead. Lovehelps when help is needed . It does not waituntil it is too late .

‘Love does not neglect the poor Old motheruntil the last illness, and then shower her withluxuries she cannot enj oy . It helps her whena little thoughtful attention and kindnessmean a great deal to her. Love writes frequent letters to the mother left behind in theold home . It does not send a little hurriednote

,after weeks and months of silence, tell

ing how busy on e has been, so driven withaff airs that one has not had time to write .Love finds a way ; it always finds time to dokind things .The busy man of the world would claim thathe is too busy to help a nother, but when hefalls In love with a beautiful girl he finds timeto bestow favors on her, time to visit her, timeto write her. Real love would find time tosee the poor old mother, to make her happy,to send her flowers, to send her candy, to remind her constantly of the love that belongsto her.

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2 54 LOVE’ S WAY

consideration, expressions of appreciation,gifts of praise, gifts of thanksgiving, whi chmust go out every day as we go along, for weshall never go this way again . We never makeback tracks on the life path . Every step isonward, and if we do not scatter our loveseeds as we go along, the path behin d us wi llbe somuch the more barren for the lives whichshall follow.

The excuse so common among busy peoplefor every neglect or omi ss10 n ,

“I haven’t time,”

is no excuse at all for letting the manna oflife spoil .You can no more postpone your daily giving than you can postpone your breathing. Ifyou postpone your gifts of ki ndly words tothe servants

,to the newsboy, to the conductor

on the train, to employees, to your associatesand especially to those who are in trouble, whohave fallen by the way, those who need yourhelp ; if you do not fling out these gifts , theseblessings

,as you go along, they will be lost

forever .The following paragraph from The YoungWoman” has a personal application for mostof us—men and women .

SCATTER YOUR FLOWERS 2 5 5

‘ I sometimes think we women nowadaysare in danger of being too busy to be reallyuseful,

’ said an old lady, thoughtfully.

‘Wehear so much about making every minutecount, and always having some work or courseof study for spare hours, and having our aoti vi ti es all synchronized, that there is no placeleft for small wayside kindnesses .

!

We go tosee the sick neighbor and relieve the poorneighbor ; but for the common every-dayneighbor who has

-

not fallen by the way,so

far as we can see, we haven’t a minute to

spare . But everybody who needs a cupful ofcold water isn’t calling the fact out to theworld, and there are a great many little pausesby the way that are no waste of time . Theold-fashioned exchange of garden flowers overthe back fence and a friendly chat about domesti c matters helped to brighten weary daysand brought more cheer than many a sermon.

We ought not to be too busy to inquire forthe girl away at school or to be interested inthe letter from the boy at sea or “

over there .”

It is a comfort to the mother ’s lon ely heartto feel that somebody else cares for that which

means so much to her. Especially we ought

2 5 6 LOVE’ S WAY

not to be too busy to give and receive littlekindnesses in our home . ’ May no one be ableto say of us that we are too

'

busy to be kind .

”

If a Gladstone in the midst of pressingduties Of international importance found t imeto visit a poor sick crossing sweeper

, what excuse can less busy and less important peopleoffer for the neglect of these small acts ofkindness which make the best of life ! Gladstone endeared himself to the heart of theEnglish people by this more than by manyof the great things he did. So did PhillipsBrooks, by caring for a baby In the slums ofBoston, that its mother might go out and getthe fresh air, endear himself to the Americanpeople more than by many great acts of hisnoble life.Yet how many of us hoard our sympathy,our words of good cheer and encouragement,the helpful kindnesses within our power to bestow

,that might save many lives from misery,

disaster and death ! We n ot only withhold oursympathy

,but we cling to our material wealth,

and wonder why we are not popular and wellbeloved . We hoard our money in houses and‘lands and stocks and other investments, refus

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2 5 8 LovE’

s WAY

deed, the less probability there is that we willever do it . And in the end we lose somethingfar more precious than the thing we shouldhave given .

He who denies the material aid that he couldreadily give, who withholds the fragrance ofhis love and helpfulness

,finds that ultimately

the very foundation of his heart dries up andhis finer nature petri fies . He loses, too, the en

joyment that his wealth might procure,for the

li ttle shrunken soul cannot enj oy as the broadgenerous one can .

There is a tradition that King Solomon recei ved a gift of a costly vase from the Q ueenof Sheba which contained an elixir, one dropof which would restore health and prolong lifeindefinitely. Solomon’s friends heard aboutthis wonderful life-restoring elixir, and whendeath was near they begged for a drop of theprecious fluid, but Solomon always refused, because he feared that by opening the vase toget a drop the rest of the precious elixir mightevaporate . At length he became very ill andbade his servants bring the vase, but behold,the precious contents had all evaporated !Things are so constituted in this world that

SOATTE R YOUR FLOWERS 5 9

selfishness defeats its own end. The fragranceand the beauty do not exist in the unopenedbud . It is only when the bud Opens up itspetals and begins to give itself out to othersthat its beauty and fragrance are developed .

Refuse to open your purse and soon youcannot open your sympathy. Refuse to love

an d you will soon lose the power tO ‘

love ; youraffections are paralyzed

,your sympathy atro

phi ed, from selfish withholding and disuse, andyou become a moral cripple . But the momentyou fling open the door of your heart an d

allow the rose of your sympathy and helpfulness to send out, without stint, i ts fragranceand beauty, upon every passerby, whetherpauper or millionaire, you begin to developpower.What would you think of a man who aftersuffering for years with a very painful disease, had finally found a remedy which hadentirely cured him, but who absolutely re

fused to tell others who were suffering withthe same disease about the remedy ! Youwould say that it was criminal . Perhaps youwould hardly believe that any man would beso brutally selfish . But there are many beauti

2 60 LOVE’ S WAY

ful helpful things which come to us constantly,things which would cheer the discouraged, i nspire the down-hearted

,and bring sunshine

and j oy into unfortunate lives about us , andthese things we could pass along with little,if any, trouble to ourselves ; but how many ofus pass them on ! How often when peoplesay good things about us do we take it as amplimen t, without even a thought of tryingto help the one who helped us, who gave usthe lift, the encouragement, or of passing thesame helpful message on to another ! HowOften do we hoard personal or householdthings with the thought that some time wemay need them instead of passing them on toothers who need them now !This is not love ’s way. Love is a generousgiver. Love passes things along it can dowithout . It does not lay up all sorts of thingsin the attic

,because they may some time be

used . The Old clothing, the discarded toys,the furniture it has no use for, it gives to thepoor. It gives garments away before they areuseless

,while there is yet some wear in them .

It passes on books and magazines it has readand no longer needs . Love goes through the

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XXI

LOVE LETTERS FROM GOD

WALT WHITM AN looked upon everythingin nature as a message to man from the Infinite . He says

‘To me converging objects of the un iverse perpetually flow ;All are wri tten to me and I must get what the writ i ngmeans .

D id you ever think that every flower, everytree

,every ray of Si In shi n e, every beautiful

landscape,is really a loving message, a letter

from God to us , His children ! If we couldonly read His handwriting in the rocks , in thefields , in the flowers , in the stars , in the moon,in the clouds, in the sunset, in all His handiwork, what j oy would be brought into ourlives !Whitman urged people to learn to readGod ’s handwriting by going direct to the founta i nhead and studying and interpreting H i smessages for themselves . This is the only wayto get their full meaning. Books and teachersopen the door to knowledge concerning the

262

LOVE LETTERS FROM GOD 263

infinite wisdom and beauty of nature and herlaws, but only by intimate and loving personalcommunion with her can we read and understand God’s messages written ou every leafof her great book.

Stop this night and day with me and you shall possess theorigin of all poems.

“You shall no longer take thi ngs at second or third hand, norlook through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the specters i nbooks.

“You shall listen to all sides and filter them for yourselves.

The Creator has so fashioned us that weget our greatest happiness in finding Him i nHis creations . Nature is packed, saturatedwith things which are calculated to make everyliving creature happy. They were made forour use. and enjoyment. They give pleasureto every sense through which pleasure can becommunicated— the sense of sight, of sound,of smell, of taste, Of touch . Every avenue tothe brain opens up a new source. of enj oyment .Why is it that every normal person loves

flowers ! S imply because the same Power thatcreated us made the flowers to fit our nature,to give us pleasure, to delight our senses . All

things are made on a marvelous divine planthat fits each for a special purpose. There

264 LOVE’ S WAY

are no unrelated things in the universe. Everyone bears a relat i on to all other creations ; andto the seeing eye, the understanding mind,God is manifest in all.A friend once surprised Emerson out in the

fields and overheard him exclaim,

“God, God ;all is God !” If every human being could thussee God i n every natural obj ect every day andevery moment of his life what a j oy livingwould be ! We would each be able to say withEmerson : “That which befits us , embosomedin wonder and beauty as we are, is cheerfulness and courage, and the endeavor to realizefour aspirations . Shall not the heart whichhas received so much, trust the Power bywhich it lives ! May it not quit other leadings,and listen to the Soul that has guided it sogently

,and taught it so much, secure that the

future will be worthy of the past ! ”

It is a pity that we allow the sordid side oflife, our grasping, gr eedy motives and effortsto obscure God’s handwriting, to cover up thebeautiful things, the finer things, the thingsthat are worth while ; that we spend the greaterpart of our time struggling for non-essentials,while we neglect the essentials, the things of

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266 LOVE’ S WAY

attention whatever to the reading of theGreatest Author’s works . Little pains i staken to teach our youth to read God’s works,to study the miracles that are everywhere being performed in nature ’s laboratory, but thestudy of dead languages and the analysis Ofclassic writers form an important part of ourso-called higher education . No wonder it Isso rare a thing to find a college graduate whocan read God’s letters in the flowers, the fruits,the vegetables, in the strata of the rocks, inthe shining sand, in the crystal waters, in thesunbeam, In the formation of the earth, ineverything.

One of the most excellent features of theGary system of education is that it brings thechildren into closer relation with nature thanany of the others . It takes them outdoors,where they are brought nearer to the Creatorin His works . There is nothing else whichwill call so much of the beautiful out of ch i ldren as the inculcation of a love and appreci ation of the wonderful works of God.

In the unique school for boys established i nIndia by the great poet and philosopher,Rabi ndran ath Tagore, where love i s the only

LOVE LETTERS FROM GOD 267

disciplinarian, learning to see and understandGod in all things is a fundamental part of theboys ’ education . Teachers and pupils in thisSchool all rise at half past four in the morn i ng,an d when dressed go outdoors chanting hymnsin praise of “the Lord of the universe who isi n the wood, in fire, in medi c i ne, who pervades and permeates the universe with hi sloving spirit .” Tagore wants to see the boysin his school grow with the plants ; so each boyspreads his mat on the earth, and all studyout under the trees . Sometimes the littlestudents will be found studying an insect,sometimes the trees, the flowers

,or other ob

jects of nature, but always whatever the studymay be, they are interested and happy.

Such a system could not be generally putln practice in America under present conditions, but the time will come when no one willbe considered educated who i s Ignorant ofGod’s handiwork. Children will be taught toread Him in the book of nature just as theyare now taught grammar and mathematics

,

and they will enj oy that study as they enj oynothing else .We tell our children fairy stor i es to interest

2 68 LOVE’ S WAY

and amuse them, but the magic and marvelsof fairyland are dull and lifeless comparedwith the wizardry of nature, the mlracles sheis constantly working before our eyes . Weshould teach our children the process of thesemiracles in simple language that

’

they canunderstand, and when they look at flowers orfruit, vegetables or cereals, or any natural oh

jects, we should teach them to see the goodback of them all, to see the Creator

’s love in

providing them for our satisfaction and en

joymen t.

A li ttle knowledge of nature would transform the world into a magic fairyland for ourchildren . A’gassiz could hold a hallful of grownstudents spellbound during an entire lecture ona grain of sand, or on a single scale of a fish .

If we could show boys and girls the wonderand glory of a grain of sand, of a crystal, ofevery common obj ect, how marvelously interesting it would make life for them.

Training children to analyze natural obj ectsand to see the divine purpose back of themdevelops the imagination, the power of thinking clearly, and a feeling of awe and reverencefor the Omnipotent Power that planned the

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270 LovE’

s WAY

beauti ful had n ot'

been developed in childhoodas had Ruskin’s .All the money of a Rockefeller will nevergive its possessor a fraction of the real wealthowned by a Ruskin, a Wordsworth or a Burbank. I t can never give him a tithe of the j oyand happiness packed into one hour of the lifeof one who knows and loves God through Hisworks . If you have never read a letter fromGod in nature

,too transcendently lovely for

descr i ption, you have not half lived. You are

not an educated man or woman . When you

can read God’s letters to His children, you

will see more In the weeds by the roadside,in

the wild flowers, in the sun and the moon andthe stars than ever was written about themin all the books that ever were printed.

! ! II

TH E HARM ONY BATH

A M AN must be next to a devil who wakesangry,

” says Horace Bushnell .How we feel on waking depends on how wefelt when going to sleep . No man shouldwake angry, because no man should go tosleep in an angry mood .

The subconscious mInd can build or destroy,can make us happy or miserable, can makeus feel like a devil or an angel, accordingto the pattern we give it . Every thoughtdropped into the subconscious mind before wego to sleep is a seed that will germinate inthe night while we are unconscious and, ultimately, bring forth a harvest of its kind.

Dr. E lwood Worcester, of Boston, andmany others working along the same linesand getting simi lar results, says :

“There isa very easy and rati onal way by which manychildish faults can be removed ; that Is, bymaking good suggestion s to our children while

are in a state of natural sleep .

2 72 LOVE’ S WAY

My method is to address the sleeping childi n a low and gentle tone, telling it that I amabout to speak to it, and that it will hear me,but that my words will not disturb it nor willit awake . _ Then I give the necessary words,repeating them in different language severaltimes . By this means I have removed childishfears and corrected bad habits . I have checkednervous twitchings, anger, violence, a dispotion to lie, and I have improved speech instammering children.

”

Before going to sleep we can, through autosuggestion, treat Ourselves in a s imilar way.

We can impress whatever message we desireon the subconscious mind, and it will affect us

’ according to its nature . Swedenborg claimedthat his spiritual vision was opened in theunconscious hours of the night. “When cor

poral and voluntary things are quiescent,” he

said,“the Lord operates .

When we stop to think that the majorityof us spend about one-third of our lives insleep we get some idea of the importance ofputting ourselves in the right mental attitudebefore going to sleep . E ight hours out ofthe twenty-four cuts a swath out of life that

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2 74 LOVE ’ S WAY

you retire, make it a rule never to go to sleepwithout erasing every unfortunate impression,every disagreeable experience, every unkindthought, every particle of envy, j ealousy andill-will from your mind Just imagine thatthe words “Harmony, Love,

” “Good-willto every living creatur e, are written all overyour bedroom in letters of light. Repeat thewords to yourself

,or, if alone, out loud until

your mental atmosphere responds to their suggestion.

Unless we attune our minds to harmony forsleep , there will be a constant strain on thenervous system all through the night . Foreven if we do manage to go to sleep with a

troubled mind, the brain keeps on workingalong the same line of thought. If, for i nstance

,we go to sleep worrying, depressed,

j ealous, envious , angry, melancholy, we willawake tired, exhausted physically and mentally. There will be no elasticity or spring inour brain, no buoyancy in our spirits . Theblood po i soned by wrong thinking is incapableof refreshing the brain .

Those who have learned the art of puttingthemselves in harmony with all the world be

THE HARM ONY BATH 2 7 5

fore they retire, never harboring a thought ofj ealousy

,hatred, envy, revenge or ill-will

against anyone, or irritating or distressingthoughts of any sort, not only get a great dealmore out of sleep but they retain their youthand vigor much longer than those who are inthe habit of going to bed all out of tune

,or of

reV1ewmg all their disagreeable experiencesand thinking over all their troubles and trialsafter they li e down. I know men whose liveshave been revolutionized by adopting the practice of putting themselves in a harmoniouscondition, getting in tune with the Infin ite before going to sleep .

Many people age more during sleep thanwhile awake, because they do not prepare theirminds for sleep . They do not take their mental harmony bath, but go to bed nursmg theirgrouches, their hatreds, their petty j ealousies,their worries, their anxieties and envies . Theseenemies of their peace and happiness, workingall night, cut deep furrows In the brain, whichsoon appear on the face .I know a man who is aging very rapidlyfrom his business and family worries . I fre

quently travel morning and evening to and

2 7 6 LOVE’ S WAY

from the city with him, and instead of lookingfresh and rejuvenated in the morning he actually looks older and more careworn than hedid the night before . This is because he takeshis troubles to bed with him and falls asleepworrying and depressed. Instead of practi sing mental chemistry, and neutralizing or dri ving them out by the peace thought

,the har

mony and love thoughts, he lets these viciousmental devils, which are playing such havocin his life

,work all night in his brain. And,

of course, they poison his blood, deplete hisvitality and cut his Wrinkles deeper and deeperevery night .At no t ime can we use auto-suggestion, thisgreat “therapeutic agency” and “upliftingethical force with more effect than on re

tiring for the night . That is the time of allothers when the rush and hurry of the dayis past, when we can most effectively put ourselves in tune with the Infinite . Taking loveas our key thought, there is no mental state,no matter how troubled or worried, how discordant and out of tune, that cannot bebrought into harmony through auto-suggestion.

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7 8 LOVE’ S WAY

rest, what a difference it would make in ourachievement, in our lives !If children were trained to form the habitof falling asleep every night with pleasantthoughts uppermost, with bright, beautifulpictures in their minds, they would wake inthe morning fresh, vigorous, cheerful, insteadof peevish, fretful and unhappy, as is the casewith so many. And what a diff erence it wouldmake to them when started on an active careerto find this priceless habit as natural as eatingand dr inking !But it is never too

'

late to form the habit .No matter what your age you may begin now.

You can, if you only persist in continuallyflooding your mind with the love thought

,fall

asleep every night like a tired, happy ch i ld,and awake in the morning just as refreshedand happy. Your subconscious self will, aftera while, carry out your behests without anyconscious effort on your part . The habit offalling asleep in a mental atmosphere of loveand peace will become second nature .From the standpoint of physical well-beingalone it is imperative to form the habit. It isfundamental to sound health to make it a rule

THE HARM ONY BATH 2 79

never to discuss business troubles, or anythingwhatever that vexes and irritates at night, es

peci ally just before retiring. When you compose yourself to rest, let there be nothing i nyour mind which will cause you regret, no

ghosts of unforgiven offenses ; no grudges orj ealousies . B e sure that your mental bath haswashed out everything that could offend,everything that could cause you pain. Forgive all of your enemies if you have any. D o

n ot let yourself go to sleep with any bitterthought in your mind .

Mental chemistry shows us that oppositethoughts—thoughts of love and hate, of harmony and discord, of good-W ill and ill-willcann ot exist in the mind at the same time . Ifyou flood your mind with love thoughts

,good

will thoughts, with optimistic, hopeful, helpful, pictures of yourself and others you willerase all unkind thoughts, all thoughts of revenge, j ealousy, envy, hatred, ill-will.If you form the habit of going to sleep withthe Christ mental attitude toward every hu»

man being, with the mind that was His, wi ththe philosophy that was His, that was re

flected in the Golden Rule, holding in your

280 LOVE’ S WAY

heart good-will for every living creature, youwill awake every morning refreshed and re

newed . You will arise a’

new creature, full ofhope, energy and courage, with a new leaseof life, a new j oy i n l i ving.

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282 LOVE’ S WAY

cause your employer is not honest himself, orto rescue a person from a burning building, orfrom drowning, as it is to go into battle . Itis heroic to stand for the right when otherssneer and condemn you for doing so . It Oftentakes more courage to stand alone for theright, for justice, for principle, when thoseabout you ridicule and caricature you for

your stand, than it would be to walk up to acannon’s mouth in battle, under the excitement, the stimulus of action and the supportof the comradeship of a multitude of others .If you can keep up your courage whenothers lose heart ; if you can keep pushing onwhen others turn back ; if you can smile andwait when others play the coward and quit ;if you can be serene in the face of misfortune,and of failure ; if you can keep your nerve,and a level head when others get panicky ; ifyou can carry yourself like a conqueror, keepyour fixi ty of purpose when others waver ; ifyou can stand unmoved and see your pros

peri ty swept away from you, even your homesold over your head ; if when you have beendeceived where you trusted, your hopes andplans wrecked, your future apparently

HEROISM AT HOM E 283

blighted, and you still refuse to lose yourcourage and your grip '

on yourself, or yourfaith in the Power that controls your life, thenyou may know that there is a hero, or a heroine, in you as noble as any that ever gave uphis life on the field of battle for a great cause .A woman who has been inveigled into anunfortunate marriage

,taken away from her

girlhood home and those who love her into alittle cabin on a vast prairie twenty miles fromany sign of civilization

,writes : “Exiled from

home and parents, deprived forever from pursuing my chosen vocation, the dream of mylife faded out, lost, what have I to make hap

p i n ess out of ! ”

Now, this is a situation that calls for thatsort of moral heroism which as far transcendsphysical heroism as a high spir itual love transcends that which i s merely physical, of thesenses ‘alone .

Whether this woman rises above, or sinksbeneath the condition in which she finds herself rests wholly with her . The soul centeredand poised in Divine Love is endowed withstrength to conquer every limitation of thebody, every condition or circumstance that

284 LOVE’S WAY

would hold it down . You can keep your eyesturned inward, nurse your grief and di sappointment until it conquers you, or you canlook out and up at God’s fair universe, andcry with Henley :

“Out of the night that covers meBlack as the pit from pole to pole

I thank whatever gods there beFor my unconquerable soul.”

This woman says she is not only exiled fromher home, but exiled from happiness . No person is exiled from happiness unless he exileshimself. The chances are that if she wouldexamine herself she would find a great manythings which would alleviate her distress andhelp her bear her disappointment bravely.

There are many things even in her situationfor which millions of people would envy her.She is sound and whole in body and mind, withall her senses unimpaired, free to absorb thesweet pure air, the bright sunshine, the sightsand sounds of nature all around her.Few of us ever stop to think that the nearer

we are to nature, to the source of things,the greater our opportunities for gatheringstrength and power to do, —for power springs

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286 LOVE’ S WAY

were sent here as an ambassador of the Aimighty. You are here on His bus iness— tomake a worthy contribution to the world

,to

deliver the message with which He entrustedyou . Now an ambassador must go where heis sent, and do his duty, attend to his businessli ke a man, not whine, grumble, groan orwhimper. You did not choose your presentplace, but the mission on which you were senthas made it necessary for you to go there, and,no matter whether you feel like it or not

,it is

your business to do your level best to be agood ambassador, to meet your difficulties inthe spirit of a brave, strong, self-reliant soul .It is the. business of every one of us to meetevery situation in life with courage, with astoic but cheerful determination to make thebest and the most of whatever comes . This isour task

,this is our m i ss i on, wherever we find it.

Thoreau, that great student and lover ofnature

,said,

“God could not be unkind to meif He tried . If we have the right spirit, ifwe are animated by the love motive, there is noSituation which we cannot turn to advantage .To have one’s dream of happiness shatteredat the outset is no little thing, but the only

HEROISM AT HOM E 2 87

hope of reconstructing it is to meet the situation bravely and make the best of it. Notmany are called upon to meet great trials likethis . The maj ority are of the minor

”

kind.

Unfortunately, one disappointment, one littlesetback

,makes most of us forget all the good

things we still enj oy, just as one stormy daymakes many people forget months of pleasantweather. The little cloud in front of our eyesat the moment seems to cover the whole sky,to shut out all sunlight and beauty. If i nstead of keeping our eyes turned inward wewould keep them turned outward like Thoreau,we would see as he did, that

“God could notbe unkind to us if He tried .

When we stop to think of the things whichconstitute the average life we shall be sur

prised to find how seldom the big problem,the

great dead, the unusual Opportun i ty, the extraordi n ary experience. enters into it . Some ofthe finest characters that ever lived never hadmet great trouble or unhappiness, never did asingle thing that was very distinctive

,very

original, or heroic in the accepted sense. Itwas their whole life habit of accepting cheerfully whatever came, of doing good wherever

2 88 LOVE’ S WAY

an opportunity presented itself, of being kind,courteous, always helping someone somewhere,that made them strong, poised, unselfish, reallyn oble men and women.

There i s a wonderful meaning i n the com

mon every-day happenings, the li ttle thingsthat come up in the daily routine, which mostof us lose sight of, and that is, the opportunitythey gi ve for character building, for mentaltraining, for the obj ect of all of life

’s endeavor—man—building and woman-building.

Your name and face may never appear inthe newspapers or magazines, but every dayyou have an opportunity to live a beautifullife, a helpful life. The heroic Virtues, courage, fortitude, un selfishn ess, can be practisedbehind the lines in the home, in the shOp,

inthe factory, i n the market-place, as well as inthe forefront on the field of battle.Only once or twice in a lifetime, and perhaps not at all, will you have a chance to doa thing that is heroic in a spectacular way

,

something that will attract widespread attention ; but the little, common, every-day courtesies, the loving acts of kindness and helpfuln ess that count so much i n the long run, we

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! ! IV

WHAT THE BEE TEACHES Us

MAETERLINCK says that a single bee lacksthe necessary intelligence to make honey ; butthat a hive of bees develops a high order ofintelligence.It i s only when they work together that beesare producti ve . If all the bees in the hive wereseparated and forced to live alone they wouldmake no honey, not even to sustain li fe. !Through lack of individual intelligence they !

,

would die. of starvation .

A hi ve of bees has a well-defined purpose,toward which each must work or suffer theconsequences . If, for

“

example, a bee bringin ghoney back to the hive eats it instead of storingit for the general good, the other bees sting i tto death.

One bee alone has no purpose, no plans, nointelligence . In short, a bee separated fromits fellow bees is absolutely helpless, absolutelyuseless .

WHAT THE BE E TEACHES Us 291

What is true of the bee is i n a large degreetrue of a human being. Aman separated fromhi s fellow-men, without any of the socialadvantages

,conveniences or facilities which

community life affords, would be practicallyhelpless . The strength of each one of us isdependent on our unity with all the others,because we are all parts of one whole .The intelligence of the community brain ofa town or Village is much superior to the Individual brains composing it . Men, who arestingy, narrow, unprogressive, will vote enmasse to do things for the general welfarewhich individually they would never consentto.

History and experience show that mankindrises or falls together. Every real and permanent advance since the world began has beendue to the action of the great principle ofhuman brotherhood— the maj ority acting to

gether for the good of all.It IS a remarkable thing that practically allof the exper iments for the attainment of idealcitizenship by little groups of altruistic people

,

who separated themselves from the rest of theworld to start colonies modeled on the Brook

2 92 LOVE’ S WAY

Farm plan, have been total failures . Theoreti cally, it would seem that the colonizationof intellectual, highly moral and industriouspeople should produce an ideal condition ofsociety. But the results of actual experiencein exclusive class-grouping of this sort havealways been disappointing.

The fact is, we are made to help one anotherin the mass . It is a law of nature that menand women begin to deteriorate when they areseparated from their fellows . No man canpermanently separate himself from his fellowswithout shrinking. No one, no matter howclever or resourceful, is independent . He i snot a whole man alone ; but he is large and

powerful in proportion as he is related to hi sfellows . He must touch other lives or losepower. He is so constituted that a thousandrelations with his brother man are necessary tohis largest development, his completest life .When he cuts himself off from the common li fehe cuts off a great many currents of power,closes many avenues of interrelation whichbring strength and rich experience .Take a writer, for example. If he secludesh imself from society he begins after a while to

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2 94 LovE’

s WAY

tion . The man who does useful work is indirect communication with other people—heworks for others, and the thought that he isdoing something for somebody sustains him .

”

This tying together of human beings so thatthey cannot get their fullest power alone is oneof the wisest provi s i ons of nature for the defeat of selfishness, the greatest foe of humandevelopment.We have seen that when the bee does not

rwork for the common good i t is put out of theway . In human society, we don

’t put the selfish units to death, but their selfishness bringsits own punishment, just as the broad generous spirit brings its own reward. For themore a man helps others, the more closely hetouches other lives, the more he expands andgrows, the more love and power comes back tohim, while the selfish man, who secludes himself from others, who has no sympathy for hisneighbors, who tries to get everything for himself, and gives as little as possible, is constantlyshrinking and narrowing his boundaries . Hei s robbing himself of power when he thinks hei s acquiring it . In the long run , selfishnessdefeats its obj ect.

WHAT THE B E E TEAcH E s Us 295

Every created thing is a part of the di vme

universal plan, in which each of us is intendedto play. an individual part. But though individual, we are still one in essence,

“For,” as

St . Paul says,“by on e Spirit are we all bap

ti zed into one body, whether we be Jews orGentiles, whether we be bond or free ; and havebeen all made to drink into one Spirit .” Ourneighbor is ourself because there is only onemind in the universe . And since all i s an expression of that Infinite Mind, there can be n oreal separateness of individuals, except in theirfailur e to recognize that “one life runs throughall creation’s veins .Some of us seem to think that we are independent centers of i ntelligence instead of beingparts of a scheme so vast, a plan so magn i fi

cent, not only for the races that live upon our

little earth planet, but for the numberlessbeings who live upon other planets, that it i sbeyond the scope of our imagination.

When we consider that hundreds of thousands of earths like our own could be takeninto the sun through one of the holes on i tssurface which we call “sun spots,

” and thatthis sun is but as a single grain of sand com

2 96 LovE’

s WAY

pared with the number of the heavenly bodies;we get a faint idea of the earth’s littleness

,and

of the immensity of the universe .The idea that, literally,

All are but parts of on e stupendous wholeWhose body Nature i s an d God the soul

,

that there is but on e principle running throughthe universe, on e life, one truth, one reality,and that this principle is divinely ben eficen t,is the most in spiring, encouraging idea thatever entered the human mind .

When we realize that we are actually one

with our neighbor we cannot help lovin g himas ourselves, because he is one with us in hisoneness with the great universal principlewhich underlies all being, which i s. the truth ofall truths . It is our ignorance of this onenessof life, our failure to realize this marvelousunity of being that gi ves us a false sense oflife. This is what makes us selfish . This i swhy we grab things from our neighbor becausewe do n ot know that he is really ourself.To contemplate the oneness of all creation,

to hold fast to the truth that all things are buta manifestation of the creative thought of

God, not only draws all people closer to God

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2 98 LOVE’S WAY

Selfishn ess will then disappear because i twill not mean anything, or rather because weshall see that i t only hurts us, since all areworking for the same end. We have no desireto cheat ourselves, to get something desirableaway from ourselves ; and when we realize thatwe are all parts of one life, branches of thesame parent vine, we shall have n o desire to getthings away from others, to take advantage ofthem

,to cheat them, because that would only

mean cheating and robbing ourselves . It

would be like a man taking money out of onepocket and putting i t into the other and trying to convince h imself that he had made a .goodbargaln , that he had gained somethin g. Ifmy brother is myself, and I know it, I can haveno desire to take advantage of him.

The truth is that love i s the great mi ndOpener, the great heart

'

open er, the great de

lveloper. It is what holds society together. Iti s the source of all peace and harmony. If

children in all countries were trained to lovehumanity, to love all countries and the i r i nhabitants as they are taught to love their own

ficountry and countrymen, there would be noWars . But even thegreat war now devastat i ng

WHAT THE BEE TEACHES US 299

the earth, is teaching us the un ity of humaninterests, in that what i njures one injures all .We are all, in greater or less degree, suff eringfrom its effects . And so unless we all worktogether now and after this war is over to bringgood out of evil, the suffering and the sacrificesit has involved will be in vain .

We have been drawn i n to this tragic war indefense of j ustice and democracy, and we aregoing to see to it that i t shall be the end of war .The world has tried the hatred way, the wayof war, the butchering way all up through thecenturies, and they have never worked . Forcehas always been a failure . Civilization hastried all sorts of ways which have failed ; onlyon e way has worked under all sorts of conditions, and that is love

’s way . It is the onlyway which will banish wars and human strife,hatred and revenge, selfishness and greed fromthe world . A principle which always works ;which fits every case and every emergency,must be a universal principle.The time will come when man will think ofhis neighbor as himself

,because all men will

then see the oneness of all life, of all truth, ofall principle . The coming man will kn ow that

300 LovE’

s WAY

whatever hurts his neighbor will hurt himself,

because we are all one with the One . The coming man will see that he is not a separate unit,but that he hears the same relation to mank indas a whole as a drop of water bears to the ocean .

He will kn ow that the thought and will ofGod are in every particle of the substance ofthe universe, in every manifestation of energy,power or force, and in every manifestation oflife .”

Already we are beginning to find that allhuman beings are so closely related that onesuffers or rej oices, i s happy or miserable, ao

cording as others are affected. Our welfare,our prosperity, our happiness, are not separatefrom the general welfare, prosperity and hap

p i n ess ; they are interdependent . An d thetime will come when we shall not consider anycity or town either moral or beautiful so longas it tolerates cancer spots, black spots ofpoverty and squalor, crime and misery in itsmidst .

“No man has come to true greatness, saysPhillips Brooks,

“who has not felt in somedegree that his life belongs to his race, and thatwhat God gives him, He gives him for man

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XXV

LovE’

s WAY AND CHRISTM AS GIVING

ONE day, during the last Christmas rush, Ioverheard a little ragged boy say to hi s babysister as they stood gazing hungrily at the bigShow window of a toy shop,

“H owI wish I

could get that dollie for you, sister. Youknow you never had a dollie. I do wish I hadmoney to get that on e.

”

One of the most pathetic things in life, onewhich has often made my heart bleed duringChristmastide is to see poor ragged childrenlike these little. ones, looking so longingly intothe gaily dressed shop windows at the dollsand toys and other beautiful things, the likeof which they never had in their lives . Whata wonderful time they would have ; how happythey think they would be if they only had themoney to buy some of these wonderful things !

But with the wisdom which comes prematurelyto the children of the poor

,they resign them

selves to the consciousness that they never canhave them.

CHRISTM AS GIVING 303

Not less pathetic than the children are themothers who vainly long to brighten Christmas for their little ones with the gifts theirchild-hearts crave . When I see poor womenwho are obliged to leave their children at homeand go out Washing or scrubbing floors , standing With their scrubbing pails on their armslooking so longingly at the Christmas showwindows, I can read their thoughts . Howthey long to take some of those things hometo their loved ones

,things which they kn ow

that though they should scrub their fingers tothe bone their children will never have . Yethow eagerly they look at the pretty clothing,the dolls, the toys, the things which they seeother children have, but which are foreverdenied to their children, who are just as preci ous to them as the better-to-do children areto their mothers .We are all looking into the show windowsof life, longing to get the beautiful things wesee displayed there, the things which will delight, which will add to our j oy and happiness . And those of us who enj oy an abundance Of the good things find i t hard to denyourselves, especially at Chri stmas t ime when

3 04 LOVE’ S WAY

all purse-stringsi

are loosened, any of thesuperfluous things we desire . / All sorts oftemptat i ons are constantly besieging us during the holiday season to buy things for ourselves and for others which we do not need.

Here is where the right sort of Christmas giving will do a double service . The very learning to say No” to selfish desires, the denyingourselves the things we long for, but can dowithout, helps build a strong, beautiful character.To refrain from burdening well-to-do people with a lot of gimcrack things which are ofno earthly use to any one, and to gi ve themoney which is usually expended on thesethings where it is really needed, would be to

give in the spirit of Him whose nativity we

commemorate .DorothyDix, one Christmas , told of a young

man who showed her a couple of hundred ofsilly presents he had received from girls,

“andwho, she said,

“after sadly inquiring of mewhat I supposed most of the things were i i itended for, remarked :

‘Gee ! I ’d trade thewhole lot Off for one good pair of socks. ’

Howmany men and women find themselves

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306 Lovn ’ s WAY

In almost every home there are discardeddolls and toys, outgrown articles of clothing,pictures

,books, all sorts of things which are

no longer needed, or used by the family, butwhich would make many a poor mother andmany a little child happy this Christmastide.The time is coming when we shall have uprooted from our economic system

,

the evilsthat make poverty and misery in this beautifulworld ; when no one need be poor but throughhis own fault . But until that happy t imearr i ves, n o one i s excused from doing his partin hasten i ng its coming, or from hi s daily re

sponsibility in helping to bear his brother’sburdens .To have and not to give, or to give stingily,grudgingly, or only to those from whom weexpect something in return, is to be outsidethe pale of Christian brotherhood. It is toknow nothing of the Christ Spirit ; it is to becontemptible . Emerson says,

“He is baseand that is the only base thing in the universe—to receive favors and render none . In theorder of nature we cannot render benefits tothose from whom we receive them, or onlyseldom. But the benefit we receive must be

CHRISTM AS G IVIN G 3 0 7

rendered again,line for line, deed for deed,

cent for cent,to somebody. Beware of too

much good staying in your han d. It will fastcorrupt and worm worms . Put i t awayquickly in s ome sort .”

The world war is loosening our heart an dour purse-strings as never before, and we arefinding ourselves all the richer for it. In thebroadening of our sympathies, and the opening of the door of narrow self-centered livesinto wider interests and world fellowship withallwho are suff ering, we are learning the truthof Christ’s “It is more blessed to give than toreceive.”

Perhaps you feel rather poor this year onaccount of the high cost of living,and themany war funds to which duty compelled youto contribute, and have been thinking of cutting down on your Christmas presents . Byall means, let us all cut out the presents thatwe were wont to give in the qui d pro quospirit. But let us not cut out the small giftsfrom which we expect no return, but whichwill make somebody happy.

Love, which is the essence of the Christmasspirit, always finds some way to serve .

3 08 Lovn ’ s WAY

A little girl who had only three pennieswith which t0 °buy a Christmas present for hergrandmother was puzzling over what she couldbuy with so small a sum when a happy thoughtcame to her . With one penny she bought asheet of paper and an envelope, and with theother two a stamp

,to carry a letter in which

she said,“I have no gift to send you, dear

grandma, but I love you, love you, love you,and here are a hundred kisses for you .

”

Among the many remembrances which thatgrandmother received, it is said that this childish letter was the only one which she cried over,and locked up with her dead baby’s curl ofhair and one or two other priceles s things .I know a very poor woman who has nothingto give in the way of material presents

,but

who does more good according to her meansthan anyone else I know of She makes apoint of going about among poor people before Christmas, trying to cheer up and comfort the cripples, the unfortunate, the sick anddiscouraged

,all those who are in trouble . She

gives such a wealth of love, of sympathy, ofencouragement, of sunshine, of good cheer,that they feel richer after she has visited them

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!all! : IBi ttOt iouS amraneBy OR ISON SWETT MARDEN

A Soul DoctorT his book should be read by all discouragedpeople. I t i s a ton ic- an d a moral bracer of thefirst order . M ost of us n eed to have our selfcon fiden ce stimulated, and D r. M arden st imulatesi t. H e i s a soul doctor .”

R i chmon d T imes D i spatch.

Buoyan t and BreezyFull of fresh ideas , couched i n straightforward

lan guage. Buoyan t, breezy an d highly stimulatmg

”Sam Franmsco Bulletm.

A Wallet of T ruthThere i s a crammed wallet

.

of truth i n yourbook. M ay it go forth to In splre men Wltl‘l thefin e courage of life.

”E dwm M arkham.

E xcellen t AdviceThe homely truths an d excellen t b its of ad

vice con tamed i n Dr . M arden ’s book will make

in structive readin g. It i s wr itten i n forc ible an d

eas ily un derstan dable style.

”Bufi

’alo Commerci al.

Can no t Fa il to H elpClear , d irect an d V igorous i n expression , an d

so upliftin g an d wholesome m subject matter, thatIt can n ot fa il to be of help to man y people whoare i n n eed of just such advice .

”

D es M o wes Regi ster.

N oth ing M ore ValuableOn e of the very best books that you ever pro

duced . The book i s like a medicin e to me. Icommen ded it to our studen ts , put it i n our library,an d It has been i n great deman d . I kn ow ofn othing fin er or more valuable for youn g peoplewho are strugglin g for an education .

”

R ev. 0 . S . Km'

ebel, D .D .

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M ati ng th i s amasterpiett

By OR ISON SWE TT MARDEN

Welcome as Sunsh ineBr ims over with optim ism

,an d i s a perfect

storehouse of apt an ecdotes . Welcome as a steadygleam of sun sh in e on a gloomy day

Portland Oregon i an .

T each es M any a TruthD r M arden teaches man y a plain , commontruth. m S imple but effect ive epigram

B ook R ev i ew D i gest.

Unforgettable Truth“No reader wxll fin d d ifficulty i n read in g on e

of h i s books , the d iffi culty h es i n forgettin g i tstruth . ” Norfolk Ledger D i spatch.

Appeal to Young M en

There i s much i n this book that will appeal tothe youn g man whose ambition 18 to make a suc

cess of life It i s written so en tertamxngly thatIt i s a prw rlege, as well as a pleasure, to read

P i ttsburgh Gazette Times .

Antido te for Bad LuckI f luck seems to be pass in g you by on the

wron g S lde, i cad th .s book.

”Clwi sti an Advocate.

A Fine Inspirat ional B o okA fin e , in sp iration al book, especially for the

youn g. I t holds the at ten tion an d st imulates the

reader to wan t to make h i s life a masterpxece

Bapti st Teacher.

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limping .i Fi t

By OR ISON SWE TT MARDEN

A H ealth TreatiseWhat to eat. how food affects character, culi

n ary cr imes, an d eatin g for effic i en cy—i n short,what to do to ma in tain perfect health—are all

discussed i n a practical an d sen sible way.

”

Omaha Bee.

A T imely WarningAny live bus in ess man , who has been a good

liver, should read ‘Keep ing F i t,’

and heed i ts

warn in gs .

”S amuel Bri ll.

Of the H ighest ValueI find the book full of in terest an d con tain ing

man y practical suggestion s of great value. It i s

a welcome addition to D r. M arden ’s books , all

of wh ich I regard as of the highest value i n theireffect upon the developmen t of the in dividual.

! ohn L . Bates,

! E x-Govern or of M assachusetts ! .

Advice that i s N eededM ost American s n eed some of the advice con

ta i n ed i n this book ; they would en joy betterhealth an d live lon ger if they read an d heeded i tsadmon ition s .

”E ven i ng Post !New York! .

A Friendly T i pIf a lot of people were to read ‘Keepin g F i t’

there would be less run n ing to physician sBoston Globe.

Go od Suggest ionsNo on e can read even a s in gle chapter of this

book without gettin g some good suggestion s fromS an Fran ci s co Chron i cle.

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fiatEuhtstmmtBy OR ISON SWE TT MARDE N

Culture of the F iner SelfN0 other in vestmen t W ill give such return s as

the culture of the fin er s elf . Whatever our vocation , we should resolve to put beauty in to our lifeat every opportun ity . D r . M arden possesses a

special gift for wr itin g books of in sp irat ion an d

moral challen ge. H i s messages r in g W ith v ir ileappeal an d can n ot fa il to arouse dorman t powersto activ ity and aggressive an d pra iseworthy selfassertion .

” Chr i s ti an World.

A Source of ProfitProbably there i s n o on e capable of reading

who could n ot profit by readin g this book.

”

Clevelan d News.

E mphas iz es a DutyDr . M arden emphas izes the duty that each i n

d ividual owes himself, of cultivat in g an appreci ation of all that i s beaut iful i n art, literature, an d

n ature, thereby en r ich in g life an d character perman en tly .” E ven i ng M a i l ! New York! .

A Guide to R ealit ies“It ought certa in ly be placed i n the han ds of

every boy an d girl about to step off in to the

realities of life. H artford Post.

Fresh and VitalI

Dr: M arden has the ab ility to say thin gs i n a

fresh an d v ital man n er . H i s book i s recommen dedto the t im id, the discouraged, an d the weary . ’

I n d i an apoli s News .

Is Worth D ollarsI s worth dollars to those who will follow what

the author suggests i n it.”

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OPINIONS OF

{Dumas anti {home

Like the previous works of D r. M arden , th isbook i s on e destin ed to be of much value i n

in spiring our young people to h igher an d betterefforts. H i s previous works have don e a vastamoun t of good, an d I am certain that everyyoun g woman who reads the n ew work will fin di n i t much of helpfuln ess.

Ex-Govern or of M assachusetts ! ohn L. B ates.

It i s just the thing we n eed, an d I am glad thatyou have been the on e to wr ite it . You kn owhow I appreciate your books an d the great valueI set upon them.

Pos itively I do n ot kn ow of the writin gs of any

other man i n Amer ica that I would rather havei n the han ds of the youn g men of this n ation .

! udge B en j . B . L i n dsey, ! uven i le Court,D en ver, Colorado.

Dr. Marden i s n ot a fan atic, but a safe, san e

an d practical wr iter of everyday problems. He

presen ts this subject i n a broad, s imple way thatcarries conv iction to h i s readers. It i s n ot an

appeal to either the marr ied or the unmarried,the

sufiragi st or the an ti-sufi ragi st, but to all human ity.Of course men an d women will d iscuss the bookfrom their poin t of view, for all will n ot agreeW ith him , but all will agree that i t i s an in teresti ng book an d worth readin g.

The Con s ti tuti on !Atlan ta, Ga. !

The best thing the author has don e.

Bookseller, Newsdealer an d S tati on er.

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