Courage to Live Nobly
*’My soul is sailing through the sea, But the Past is heavy and hindereth me; The Past hath crusted, cumbrous shells That hold the flesh of cold sea-mells
About my soul. The huge waves wash, the high waves roll, Each barnacle clingeth and worketh dole,
And hindereth me from sailing!
^’Old Past, let go and drop i’ the sea
Till fathomless waters cover thee!
For I am living, but thou art dead;
Thou drawest back, I strive ahead
The day to find. Thy shells unbind! Night comes behind, I needs must hurry with the wind
And trim me best for sailing.”
OOD wishes at the beginning of a year or on one’s birthday are pleasant. They give us encouragement and put new zest into our lives. After all, however, good wishes will not come true by the mere wishing. We make our own years, and whether they are happy and beautiful or not will depend on the kind of living we put into them.
In going forward from year to year one of the secrets of a true life lies in cutting loose from the past. No year is good enough to be a standard for the one that comes after it. Each new year should be a step in the mountain-climb, lifting our feet a little higher, into clearer air and heavenlier atmosphere. Whatever our attainments or achievements may have been yesterday, they should be no- [185] bier and better to-day. Everyone’s past Is full of mistakes. The whitest pages are flecked with many a stain. There are things in our memory of which we are ashamed. There are failures, neglects, and sins in the best of us. We should leave these all behind us. We should count them as rubbish, which have no fit place in our new life for Christ, and which must be given up.
Sometimes the past is discouraging. There has been in it so much that was wrong, so much of mistake, folly, or sin, that one is disheartened. But no past, however one has seemed to fail in it, should be accepted as defeat. The poet tells a beautiful story of the little birds whose nest had been ruined. As he walked among the trees in his garden after the storm, he found a torn nest lying on the ground, and began to brood sadly over it, pitying the birds whose home had thus been wrecked. But as he stood there and mused he heard a twittering and chattering over his head, and looking up he saw the birds busy building again their ruined nest, instead of grieving over its loss [186]
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and destruction. That is what we should do with the ruins we have made in our lives. We should not grieve and vex ourselves over them, nor spend a moment in regret which can avail nothing, but should straightway set to work to build again what our sin or our folly has destroyed.
Robert Louis Stevenson closes one of his prayers with these words: “Help us with the grace of courage that we be none of us cast down when we sit lamenting over the ruins of our happiness. Touch us with the fire of Thine altar, that we may be up and doing, to rebuild our city.” These are good words — the grace of courage that we be not cast down by our failures, but that we may rise and cheerfully rebuild the ruins we have made in the past. Many people need this word when they come to their anniversaries. Things did not go well with them the last year. They spoiled their own happiness, perhaps another’s happiness, too. Their fine resolves, perhaps neatly written out and signed a year ago, came to nothing. The ideals they set up, [187] honestly meaning to attain them, remain unreached to-day. There seems to have been only mistake, folly, and failure, and they stand and look back at nothing but ruins. Yet, however sad it all really may be, they should not spend one hour in grieving over it. Tears will rebuild nothing that has been torn down. Time is only wasted that is spent in grieving. We should take a lesson from the birds and, forgetting all failure, begin at once to build anew.
Brooding over the past, however foolish and ruinous it has been, is useless, only a waste of strength and opportunity. Nothing good ever comes of it. The Japanese have a proverb:
“My skirt with tears is always wet,
I have forgotten to forget.’*
Too many people forget to forget. St. Paul’s way was better. He forgot the things that were behind, whether mistakes or attainments, left them altogether in the past, and, stretching forward to the things that were before, he [188] courage to UU ioblt
used all his energy and strength to attain and achieve them.
But it is not enough merely to forget the past. We must come out of it unhurt by it if we are going to reach our best. The question concerning each one of us is, not what a particular year brought to us of experience, but what we are bringing out of the year in our own lives.
Some people are hurt by what goes on in their lives. Some are hurt by temptation — wounded, scarred, weakened. Some are hurt by sorrow, their vision of faith dimmed, their power of endurance lessened, their thought of God perverted, their joy lost. Some are hurt by unkind or unjust treatment received from others — cherishing resentment and growing bitter. Some are hurt by honors which come to them, by prosperity, by success. Their heads are turned, and they grow vain and self-conceited, losing the sweetness and simplicity of their quieter days. Some are hurt by disaster, by suffering, by poverty, by failure of hopes and plans. They become broken in spirit and dis- [189] couraged. The problem of true and beautiful living is, not to make a set of circumstances which shall serve us well, giving us comfort and ease, ministering to our pleasure; but, rather, the problem is, in whatever circumstances we may be placed, to live worthily, nobly, victoriously, coming out unscathed, unhurt, bearing not a stain, stronger, braver, and truer.
A young man went through an experience of failure last year, losing all he had, the gatherings and savings of years of toil and struggle. He came out with his hands empty, but clean. He had lost his money, but he had not lost his honor. His manliness is unspotted. He has courage to begin in the new. Another passed through the stress of a great sorrow last year, but his faith failed not. Another had a year of burden-bearing which almost crushed him, but to-day he is as brave, as trustful, as hopeful, as joyful, as he was before he entered the year’s testing. In all the world there is no one that can do us any harm but ourselves. If our heart remains true, if [190]
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our faith continues steady, if our spirit is always victorious, if we do not lose the song out of our hearts, the winds may blow as they will, and the waves roll as they will, but nothing can touch us in our refuge to do us any hurt.
There is something else. Forgetting things of the past and coming out of our experiences unharmed, we must reach forward and lay hold upon new -and better things. Some people never do. They have no enthusiasm for growth or advancement. They may be ambitious for position, but they do not really strive for the prize of manhood. To be in a larger place this year than the year before is not promotion, unless, meanwhile, one has grown larger one’s self and better. The only true advancement is in character. Each year should open new paths before us, paths leading up higher. Nothing but the best things possible are worthy to be ideals for us. As Browning puts it:
Endeavor to he good, and better still, And best. Success is naught — endeavor’s all. [191]
We should think a great deal of the possibilities of our lives. We should try to realize something of the dignity and glory in us. We are not worms. We are not made to grovel in the dust. Yet there are those who do grovel, who live as if they were only worms. Think of an angel coming down to earth and living as some men do in this world, scrambling in the dirt for money, prostituting all that is noble in their nature in self-indulgence. Yet we are higher than the angels — “but a little lower than God.” Do we live as if we were so exalted in rank, in standing .f Some of us are dimly aware of the great possibilities in us, yet lack the energy and the earnestness necessary to release our imprisoned faculties and give them wing. One of the most wonderful stories of the conquest of difficulty is that of Helen Keller. She was blind, she was deaf, she could not speak. Her soul was hidden away in an impenetrable darkness. Yet she has overcome all these seemingly invincible obstacles and barriers and now stands in the ranks of intelligence and schol- [192]
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arship. We have a glimpse of what goes on in her brave soul in such words as these: “Sometimes, it is true, a sense of isolation enfolds me like a cold mist as I sit alone and wait at life’s shut gate. Beyond, there is life and music and sweet companionship; but I may not enter. Fate, silent, pitiless, bars the way. Fain would I question His imperious decree; for my heart is still undisciplined and passionate; but my tongue will not utter the bitter, futile words that rise to my lips, and they fall back into my heart like unshed tears. Silence sits immense on my soul. Then comes hope with a smile and whispers, * There is joy in self-forgetfulness.’ So I try to make the light in others’ eyes my sun, the music in others’ ears my symphony, the smile on others’ lips my happiness.”
Helen Keller, in one little sentence that she has written, discloses the secret of all that she has achieved and attained. This resolve, she herself says, has been the keynote of her life. “I resolved to regard as mere impertinences of fate the handicaps which were placed [193] about my life almost at the beginning. I resolved that they should not dwarf my soul, but, rather, should be made to blossom, like Aaron’s rod that budded.” Some of us, with no such hindrances, with no such walls and barriers imprisoning our being, with almost nothing in the way of the full development of our powers, with everything favorable thereto, have scarcely found our souls. We have eyes, but we see not the glory of God about us and above us. We have ears, but we hear not the music of divine love which sings all round us. It may not always be easy for us to learn to know the blessed things of God which fill all the world. But if we had half the eagerness that Helen Keller has shown in overcoming hindrances, half the energy, think how far we would be advanced to-day! We would then regard as mere impertinences of fate the handicaps which are about us, making it hard for us to reach out to find the best things of life. We would not allow our souls to be dwarfed by any hindrances, but would struggle on until we are [194]
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free from all shackles and restraints, and until we have grown into the full beauty of Christ.
Sometimes young people are heard complaining of their condition or circumstances as excuse for their making so little of their lives. Because they are poor, and no rich friend gives them money to help them, or because they have some physical infirmity or hindrance, or because they have not had good early advantages, they give up and submit to stay where they are. The story of Helen Keller should shame all such yielding to the small inconveniences and obstacles that beset young people in ordinary conditions. They should regard their limitations and hindrances as only impertinences, to be bravely set aside by undismayed and unconquerable energy, or, rather, as barriers set not to obstruct the way but to nerve and stimulate them to heroic endeavor before which all obstacles will vanish.