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PATHFINDERS 
 
 AND OTHER 
 
 Saturday Sermonettes 
 

PATHFINDERS 
 
 AND OTHER 
 
 Saturday Sermonettes 
 
 Which <iAppeared in 
 
 THE TULSA TRIBUNE 
 
 During the Tear ig20 
 BY 
 
 Richard Lloyd Jones 
 
 /* 
 
 ■S 
 
 TULSA, OKLAHOMA 
 
 TULSA TRIBUNE COMPANY 
 
 1921 
 

 ^o,V 
 
 Copyright, 1921 
 
 BY 
 
 Richard Lloyd Jones 
 
 FEB \2\'i2\ 
 
 OiC!.A608318 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Pathfinders I 
 
 Law 4 
 
 Thrift 7 
 
 Are You Educated ? lo 
 
 Dare the Impossible 14 
 
 The Good of Trouble 17 
 
 Eve's Other Children 20 
 
 Washington 23 
 
 Sunshine 26 
 
 The Open Mind 28 
 
 The Life Apart 30 
 
 Good Humor 33 
 
 Easter 35 
 
 Work 38 
 
 Power 40 
 
 Wisdom 43 
 
 Failure 46 
 
 Music 49 
 
 The New Heroism 52 
 
 Personal Liberty 55 
 
 Fellowship 58 
 
 Hope 61 
 
 Idealism 64 
 
 Clothes (^'j 
 
 Leadership 70 
 
 Simplicity 73 
 
 Books 75 
 
 Enemies of Society 78 
 
 Don't Sneer, Cheer 80 
 
 V 
 
vi Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 They Who Triumph 83 
 
 Silence 86 
 
 Think It Out 88 
 
 Greatness 90 
 
 Justice 93 
 
 Liberty 96 
 
 Talk 98 
 
 Road-Making loi 
 
 Heart Culture 103 
 
 Go Ahead 106 
 
 The Forces of Selfishness 109 
 
 Guide Right 112 
 
 The Self-Made Man 114 
 
 Duty 117 
 
 Genius 1 19 
 
 Vision 122 
 
 Perseverance 125 
 
 Knowledge 128 
 
 Envy 130 
 
 Be Busy 132 
 
 Christmas is Coming 134 
 
 The Star of Christmas 137 
 
 Resolutions 140 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 DURING the last few years we have heard 
 much discussion both from platform and press 
 of church decadence — the failure of the church. 
 The subject has become one for both public 
 debate and periodical discussion. 
 
 I am one of those who believe in the church as 
 an institution, who believe that the church has a 
 function of its own that cannot be delegated — a 
 purpose to fulfill. But however the individual 
 may choose to align himself in this debate, if there 
 be basis for controversy at all, however much he 
 may make use of statistics to prove or disprove 
 one argument or the other, it is an indisputable 
 fact that in no land throughout the world has 
 Christianity been such a great success as in 
 America. Here certainly, whether individuals 
 have affiliated or not with any of the denomina- 
 tional divisions of Christianity, all are essentially 
 Christian in character. Here a great law-abiding 
 people strive to live in obedience to the simple and 
 adequate creed of the Golden Rule. 
 
 If this is true, and I believe it is, we are all of 
 us thinking in simple, self-evident truths. Many 
 of us do not take the time to put these expressions 
 of faith and forms of conduct into words. But 
 
Vlll 
 
 Foreword 
 
 believing these simple formulas are part of the 
 average mind, part of the average person's daily 
 practice, part of our conviction and aspirations, 
 part of our creed of conduct, I have ventured once 
 a week to put a common denominator of practical 
 piety into what I have called "The Saturday 
 Sermonette." 
 
 And I hereby gratefully acknowledge the very 
 generous and public-spirited cooperation of the 
 following gentlemen and business concerns: 
 
 Cyrus S. Avery 
 
 J. E. Crosbie 
 
 J. Alexander Dingwall, Jr. 
 
 E. B. George 
 
 O. R. Howard 
 
 E. R. Kemp 
 
 J. H. Markham, Jr. 
 
 D, B. Mason 
 
 E. R. Perry 
 Waite Phillips 
 E. W. Sinclair 
 J. N. Thompson 
 H. F. Wilcox 
 Atlantic Petroleum Co. 
 Barnsdall Corporation 
 Central National Bank 
 Chestnut & Smith 
 Constantin Refinery Co. 
 Exchange National Bank 
 Export Oil Corporation 
 Frick-Reid Supply Co. 
 GiUiland Oil Co. 
 Hayner Petroleum Co. 
 Hotel Tulsa 
 
 Iron Mountain Oil Co. 
 
 K. C. Waffle House 
 
 Ketchum Hotel 
 
 Lawrence Petroleum Co. 
 
 Lynde & Darby 
 
 McEwen Mfg. Co. 
 
 Mid-Co. Petroleum Co. 
 
 Minnetonka Lumber Co. 
 
 National Exploration Co. 
 
 Oklahoma Central Oil Co. 
 
 Oklahoma Petroleum & Gas Co. 
 
 Oklahoma Producing & Refining Co. 
 
 Producers & Refiners Corporation 
 
 Public Service Corporation 
 
 Pure Oil Co. 
 
 Rice & Lyons 
 
 Skelly Oil Co. 
 
 Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. 
 
 Tidal Oil Co. 
 
 Tuloma Oil Co. 
 
 Tulsa Mill & Lumber Co. 
 
 Tulsa Street Ry. Co. 
 
 U. S. Compression Inner Tube Co. 
 
 D. D. Wertzberger Co. 
 
 West, Sherman, Davidson & Moore 
 
 These friends generously expanded the useful- 
 ness of the Sermonette by contributing for a year 
 a page of church advertisements which in a page 
 
Foreword 
 
 border pictured the church edifices of our city 
 and weekly announced the pulpit program of each. 
 These announcements formed a frame in which the 
 Saturday Sermonette was featured. Through this 
 private generosity the Sermonette has become 
 more than merely a thumb-nail editorial lifted 
 into "hand-set" type in the Saturday issues of 
 the Tulsa Tribune; it has become an instrument 
 to help further the back-to-the-church move- 
 ment. Therefore my gratitude to these good 
 friends who have helped to put the Sermonette 
 to this larger and better use. 
 
 Richard Lloyd Jones. 
 
 Tulsa, Oklahoma, 
 January lo, 1921. 
 
PATHFINDERS 
 
 AND OTHER 
 
 Saturday Sermonettes 
 
 PATHFINDERS 
 
 CULTURE often makes cowards of the best 
 of men. It tends to bind their thoughts to 
 the triumphs of the past rather than to the pos- 
 sible achievements of the future. It makes them 
 slaves to established codes. It throws a cloud of 
 suspicion over innovation. It makes them afraid 
 of a new idea. 
 
 They were the scholars of Athens who fed 
 Socrates poison. They were the scholars of Italy 
 who lit the fagots at the feet of Savonarola. The 
 wise men of Spain jeered at Columbus. Cultured 
 England laughed at Darwin. Schooled scientists 
 scoffed at Harvey's theory of blood circulation, 
 at Watt's tea kettle engine, at Whitney's machine 
 that could sew, at Daguerre's sun picture, at 
 Wells' anaesthetics, at Morse's telegraph, at Bell's 
 telephone and at Edison's talking machine. A 
 quarter of a century ago a professor of physics 
 at the University of California "proved abso- 
 
 1 
 
Pathfinders and Other 
 
 lutely" that it was a physical impossibility for 
 man to fly. But the Wright boys showed that 
 this professor was a slave to his culture. 
 
 Every great triumph in the world's history has 
 fought its way over the boundaries of temporary 
 failure and gained its goal in spite of the scoffs 
 of the "cultured." 
 
 Society's pet is seldom a prophet. True talent 
 is discovered tardily. To possess all the accumu- 
 lated knowledge of the past does not make a man 
 great. We are measured not by our accumula- 
 tions but by our contributions. The brains that 
 are remembered are those which had not knowledge 
 but the patience and the confidence to pursue 
 unabated a great plan or purpose and create 
 knowledge. 
 
 Because a fellow is doing something different 
 from what has been done, don't be too quick to 
 call him crazy. Time may make you the bigger 
 fool of the two for having rejected his idea before 
 understanding it. 
 
 It's the fellow who sails a new sea who discovers 
 a new shore. It is the fellow with originality whom 
 the world most needs. 
 
 If a man's faith in his new scheme can stand the 
 acid test of the unthinking sneer, he may live to 
 benefit the world. The fellow who is afraid to 
 depart from convention, and who is afraid to do 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 
 
 something different for fear he may be laughed at, 
 is a craven no matter how much he may know. 
 
 The men and women who acquire knowledge 
 that they may be respectable, who look to the 
 past that they may be comfortable in the present, 
 without any thought of duty to the future, who 
 study merely for the mental gymnastics of 
 training their minds and who are afraid to use 
 the mind when trained, are about as effective as 
 an army which has learned to march by marking 
 time. 
 
 Learn not only to fill your head but to use your 
 head. Don't be afraid to beat out a new path. 
 The beaten paths are overcrowded. 
 
 The pioneer's path is always hard but it is the 
 pioneer who finds new fields and new benefits and 
 whom in the end the world most honors. 
 
Pathfinders and Other 
 
 LAW 
 
 IT has become the custom to decorate costly 
 courthouses with pediments, and court cham- 
 bers with mural paintings which picture the jus- 
 tice of law. It has long been the custom to sur- 
 mount courthouses with the symbolic figure of 
 Justice blindfolded and with scales in hand. All 
 this means that the recognized purpose of law is 
 justice. 
 
 The lawyer who practices his high profession 
 for the purpose of acquiring advantage rather 
 than of establishing justice is not a lawyer but a 
 shyster. A shyster may wear good broadcloth, 
 move in so-called good society; he may be ever so 
 well educated; he may be skilled as an orator; 
 but he is none the less a cancer in the legal pro- 
 fession. For law is not law if it violates the prin- 
 ciples of justice. And he who warps it into serving 
 injustice commits a crime against the society 
 which creates law. 
 
 Law is the enlightened reason of the state. 
 The state is the people — it is never a person. The 
 state creates no laws for the benefit of a single 
 individual. The state creates laws for the benefit 
 of all individuals. And the laws which endure 
 are those which re^ch the highest perfection of 
 reason. Those which do not reach this perfection 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 
 
 have to give way to those that do. Hence laws 
 change. 
 
 The lawyer who looks upon law as a fetish 
 and who would bind the present by the limitations 
 of the past dishonors the profession he claims. 
 
 As the manners, customs and morals of the 
 times make laws, so must laws, if they are true to 
 society, change as the manners, customs and 
 morals of men change. 
 
 The best use and practice of laws is to teach 
 men to lay aside bad and outgrown laws, for laws 
 cease to be good when they cease to be reasonable. 
 
 Men of honor respect laws because laws are 
 designed to respect honor. It is only the rogues 
 who feel the restraint of law. And it is only the 
 rogues in the profession of law who seek to upset 
 justice through devotion to petty technicalities 
 instead of trying to fulfill the clear intent of the 
 law. 
 
 True laws are the bulwarks of liberty. They de- 
 fine every man's rights and defend the just liber- 
 ties of all men. When law is destroyed, then is 
 liberty lost. 
 
 He that is within the law finds law to be his 
 bes.t friend; he that is without the law finds law 
 to be his worst enemy. 
 
 Just laws are always born of the spirit of uni- 
 versal love. 
 
Pathfinders and Other 
 
 "The law," declared Daniel Webster, "honors 
 us, may we honor it." 
 
 The lawyer as the layman who honors law most 
 is he who, keeping within the law, refuses to mark 
 time but forces it forward, abreast of the vanguard 
 of human progress. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 
 
 THRIFT 
 
 IN one of his poems Thomas Hood says, "Evil 
 Is wrought by want of thought as well as by 
 want of heart." 
 
 History was once described by a distinguished 
 French statesman as a record of the world's great 
 wrongs. 
 
 Heaven knows the world has been filled with 
 trouble enough. There have been crimes of lust 
 and anger, jealousy and revenge, malice and envy, 
 greed and hate. To all this must be added the 
 crimes too seldom recorded, too often overlooked, 
 the crimes of carelessness, thoughtlessness, lack 
 of planning, want of thrift. 
 
 How often have we heard the Failures excused 
 on the apology, "Well, he Is good-hearted, any- 
 way." The man who lives without plan Is Idle- 
 hearted. Negative goodness cannot be catalogued 
 as a virtue. Positive purpose has system. System 
 is the door step to the house of profit. System Is 
 moral. It matters not what the profit is. It may 
 be money or wisdom. System also provides for 
 the use of that which It assembles. System 
 does not accumulate In a heap. It Is current. 
 System Is energy wisely applied. It is thrift. 
 
 Thrift Is a composite quality. It embraces 
 within itself nearly all the great virtues. It 
 
Pathfinders and Other 
 
 involves industry, prudence, forethought, self- 
 denial. It has no relation to meanness. 
 
 The man who would let his grandmother starve 
 for the sake of a few dollars or the father who, 
 out of a self love accepts praise but denies just 
 encouragement to a striving son, is neither wise 
 nor thrifty. A virtue carried to excess becomes a 
 vice. True thrift is as nicely balanced as a chem- 
 ist's scale. 
 
 The thrift that does not take into partnership 
 honesty of character develops into covetousness 
 and avarice. 
 
 Thrift is the opposite of prodigality, improvi- 
 dence and waste. 
 
 Thrift means better homes and better food 
 and clothes, more comfort and enjoyment, less 
 waste and anxiety. 
 
 It is true that a large proportion of the people 
 have earnings so small that saving seems impos- 
 sible. But this is no reason for their being un- 
 thrifty. On the contrary it is the very reason for 
 their making the most out of that which they have. 
 
 Just good nature and that alone will not insure 
 either health or happiness, nor will it lead to the 
 road of knowledge. 
 
 The humble log cabin on Knoll creek was no 
 handicap to Lincoln because he possessed the vir- 
 tue of thrift. He measured with care both his 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 
 
 time and his talents. He invested with conscien- 
 tious wisdom both his heart and his intellect. 
 
 Don't waste money. Save it and USE it when 
 you do spend it. 
 
 Don't dissipate time or energy. Hitch them to 
 an orderly and well defined purpose. 
 
 Out of such a well regulated and thrifty sys- 
 tem grow confidence, quickened energies, firmer 
 courage, more stalwart thought and hope, and the 
 independence and self-respect that lift aimless, 
 hopeless drudges up to the true manhood and 
 womanhood that aspire and achieve. 
 
 Give to life the careful planning and thought 
 that evades evil. Make our own story as well as 
 the world's story a record of great deeds for good. 
 So may we hope to change "this mad unthrifty 
 world which every hour throws life enough away 
 to make her deserts kind and hospitable. " 
 
 The way to be a builder is to be a beginner. 
 There is only one way to build for the future and 
 that is to begin now. The way to save is to start. 
 And once started don't stop. But do not forget 
 that hoarding is not thrift. The miser knows as 
 little of thrift as the prodigal waster. 
 
 True thrift means wise spending as well as wise 
 saving. Use and do not abuse the spirit of saving. 
 That is thrift. 
 
10 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 ARE YOU EDUCATED? 
 
 THE best college is not measured by endow- 
 ment. It is measured by the men and women 
 it turns out. The test of culture is the ability to 
 serve, the power of giving not getting, of helping 
 not hindering. 
 
 The college will ofttimes pass a man the world 
 will quickly flunk. Many men have been hon- 
 ored in college who have been dishonored by soci- 
 ety because with all their high gradings in classes 
 they had not learned how to march with the 
 masses. 
 
 The college is a starter but it never completes 
 the education job. Your education does not end 
 when you pick up your diploma. That is when it 
 just begins. That is why graduation day is 
 Commencement Day. 
 
 Many of the best educated people got their 
 education without the help of college courses. 
 Test yourself. If you can honestly answer "yes" 
 to all the questions that follow you are indeed 
 educated even though you never heard of Xeno- 
 phon's Anabasis and never owned a parchment 
 encased in a tin tube. 
 
 Has education given you sympathy with all 
 good causes and made you espouse them? 
 
 Has it made you public spirited ? 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 11 
 
 Have you learned to make friends and keep 
 them ? 
 
 Do you know what it is to be a friend your- 
 self? 
 
 Can you look an honest man or pure woman 
 straight in the eye? 
 
 Do you see anything to love in a little child ? 
 
 Will a lonely dog follow you in the street? 
 
 Can you be high-minded and happy in the 
 meaner drudgeries of life? 
 
 Do you think washing dishes and hoeing corn 
 as compatible with high thinking as dancing or 
 golf? 
 
 Are you good for anything to yourself? 
 
 Can you be happy alone ? 
 
 Can you look out on the world and see anything 
 except dollars and cents? 
 
 Can you be a brother to your neighbor? 
 
 Have you a better ambition than merely "to 
 make your pile?" 
 
 Have you formed the habit of hoping that you 
 may help others and thereby leave this old world 
 a little better than you found it? 
 
 Do you put patriotism into your politics ? 
 
 Do you support a public official after election 
 with the same enthusiasm you show before elec- 
 tion and thereby help him to fulfill his pre- 
 election promises? 
 
12 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 Can you read the history that is written in the 
 rocks that boldly shoulder the broad current and 
 bend the river in its course? 
 
 Does the mountain lift you nearer heaven and 
 the sea lead you in silent prayer? 
 
 Can you look into a mud puddle by the way- 
 side and see a clear sky? 
 
 Can you see anything in the puddle but mud ? 
 
 Can you look into the sky at night and see 
 beyond the stars ? 
 
 Can your soul claim relationship with the 
 Creator ? 
 
 How many college A. B.'s can honestly say 
 "yes" to these 22 questions? If you cannot, is it 
 not time to ask yourself which has failed, you or 
 your college? There are many who could pass 
 this examination who cannot boast of an aca- 
 demic degree. 
 
 We need more professors in our colleges who 
 have the prophetic courage to ask such questions 
 of their classes. 
 
 Merely to know the parts of a bug, or the parts 
 of speech is not culture. Your ability to tear a 
 poem to pieces, analyze and parse it does not 
 mean that you have a soul filled with the great 
 eternal truths of the poets. 
 
 To help you to conceive the purpose of life and 
 to pursue that purpose is the mission of every 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 13 
 
 school and college. They are to equip you with 
 the tools. You are to use the tools. 
 
 Are you educated? Study these questions, 
 answer them honestly, and you yourself will 
 know. 
 
14 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 DARE THE IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 IN one of Maeterlinck's wonderful stories he 
 tells of a powerful man of the Middle Ages who 
 conceived great plans and executed them, but 
 always with difficulty. Frequently he almost 
 failed, and succeeded only by superhuman effort. 
 Finally he found that a secret enemy was always 
 working against his most careful plans, neutral- 
 izing his most strenuous exertions. 
 
 As the years passed he determined to find and 
 destroy this enemy. Life was not worth living 
 with this hidden foe forever encircling him with 
 difficulties. One evening he went out for a walk. 
 He saw another man approaching him. By that 
 strange instinct which warns us of danger he 
 knew that this man was his life-long enemy. He 
 resolved to kill him. 
 
 As he approached, he observed that this man 
 wore a mask. But, conscious that this was the 
 antagonist of his life, he said as they met: "You 
 are the man who from my youth till now has 
 been pursuing me, thwarting me, almost defeat- 
 ing me. I mean to kill you but I will give you 
 a chance for your life. Draw and defend your- 
 self." 
 
 The stranger said as he drew his sword, "I am 
 at your service, but first see who it is that you 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 15 
 
 would fight." He removed his mask and the 
 man stood — before himself. 
 
 This fable is true of every one of us. Where 
 you think an enemy has injured you, look closely 
 and nine times out of ten you will find yourself 
 in some evil guise. But most often you will find 
 yourself in the form of your habits. 
 
 It is a common practice to blame the world 
 and not ourselves for our failings. Look deep 
 enough and you will usually find that it is not the 
 world that stands in your way but you yourself. 
 
 If there is any evil in us, bad habits will develop 
 it. And there is evil in all of us. Put your strength 
 to the test, but never your weakness. Dare to try 
 the apparently impossible tasks if they are tasks 
 for good; never fear failure — all the world loves a 
 good loser; and when you fail in the right, your 
 defeat is only the beginning of final victory. 
 
 Day by day civilization is demanding more of 
 each one of us— more that is pure and strong. 
 Twentieth century society tolerates no weakness, 
 no taint in individual workers. Today every 
 man must be above suspicion. Each one of us 
 must be proof against calumny. Everybody is 
 lied about — sometimes by envy, sometimes by 
 ignorance. Never resent a falsehood about your- 
 self — after all it is a test of your reputation. 
 Let your life, not your words, be your rebuke to 
 
16 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 slander. You defeat yourself when you stoop 
 to the slanderer's low level. 
 
 Noble living is all the armor you need to wear. 
 Silence is the most eloquent answer that can be 
 made to the slanderer and it is the sure search- 
 light that will reveal the slanderer's shame and 
 put him in complete disrepute. 
 
 Be so true to yourself that you never need to 
 fear yourself and you will never need to fear the 
 world. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 17 
 
 THE GOOD OF TROUBLE 
 
 A MISSIONARY was urging a lazy heathen to 
 arouse and do. 
 
 "Why trouble myself?" 
 
 "If you work you can make money." 
 
 "What for.?" 
 
 "With money you can buy property, enlarge 
 your life and become a great man." 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 " Why — why, then you will be happy. " 
 
 "But I'm happy now," returned the heathen. 
 
 The tropics are full of optimism of this sort. 
 That's why there's nothing doing there. There 
 is too much comfort and sunshine. It takes fog 
 and rain and snow to make men hustle. 
 
 Adversity is the anvil on which is wrought the 
 iron of constructive and enduring good. 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose we ought always to be 
 selfishly happy and free from personal trouble. We 
 need the stimulant of adversity that we may be use- 
 ful not alone to ourselves but to others. Personal 
 happiness is the reaction, pleasant but temporary. 
 
 The human heart has strange appetites. It 
 must have its sorrows, its tragedies and tears and 
 bitter herbs. 
 
 Like the old woman who "loves our murders" 
 in the newspapers, we want blood in our novels. 
 
18 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 That is not because we love wrong but because 
 we love to see wrong righted. 
 
 We like the play because we want to see wick- 
 edness redressed and the right win. 
 
 We like preachers who give us something more 
 stimulating than sermons on complacency and 
 contentment. We cannot learn how to guide right 
 unless we learn how to redress wrong. We want 
 to strengthen ourselves so that we dare face 
 wrong and fight it to defeat, leaving the world 
 better than we found it. 
 
 It is the active life and not the passive life, the 
 militant goodness and not the passive negative 
 goodness that brings to us the life beautiful. 
 
 To glaze over the wrongs of the world by try- 
 ing to deny that they exist is a manifestation of 
 either ignorance or intellectual laziness. To face 
 the sorrows and wrongs of the world, to acknowl- 
 edge them and to labor and sacrifice to correct 
 them is the road to both helpfulness and happiness. 
 
 We all want pleasure. But we are too often 
 mistaken as to what pleasure really is. Happi- 
 ness is never really known unless it comes through 
 the school of trouble. 
 
 The parched land on the desert lifts the thorn- 
 covered cactus into radiant bloom in grateful 
 recognition of the wonderful light that warms the 
 world. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 19 
 
 As we pick our path we shun the mud but we 
 pause to love the Hly. Let us not forget that it is 
 the warm muck that makes the Hly flower. 
 
 The test of culture is the ability to cultivate 
 your sorrows into joys, and to make life blessed 
 by enriching the soil of service. That is the way 
 to make the world good. 
 
20 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 EVE'S OTHER CHILDREN 
 
 ACCORDING to one old Syrian legend, after 
 -/jL Eve was driven from the Garden of Eden, 
 she had a large number of little ones. And one day 
 by the shining in the sky she knew the Lord was 
 coming. Frantically the woman worked to make 
 her children presentable. The time was short, so 
 she washed and cleaned the pretty, the strong and 
 the happy ones. The lame, the blind and the halt, 
 the ugly she hid away in a cave below the earth 
 and bade them be very quiet while God was there. 
 
 And the Lord came and viewed the pretty chil- 
 dren. And then He said: ''Woman what hast 
 thou done?" 
 
 And Eve trembled. 
 
 And then the Lord said: "Thou hast brought 
 sorrow into the world for all time to come. Already 
 these pretty ones have forgotten that those thou 
 hast hidden are their brothers and sisters. Already 
 they think themselves the salt of the earth. And 
 those others — thou hast consigned them to dark- 
 ness and toil and sorrow. Always, because of 
 thy deed, there will be those who have plenty and 
 dwell in the sunshine; and Eve's other children 
 forgotten, sitting in places of gloom, toiling, 
 moiling, they and their children and their chil- 
 dren's children." 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 21 
 
 Thus the legend. 
 
 For centuries its truth has held good. Always 
 there have been Eve's children, born to the light 
 and Eve's other children, seemingly born to the 
 shadow. And the children of light have always 
 sought to make their light brighter, regardless 
 of the fact that in so doing they make the shadows 
 darker for Eve's other children. 
 
 Thus has caste grown up. Thus has special 
 privilege come into being. Thus has the perni- 
 cious doctrine of property rights become fixed 
 as opposed to human rights. 
 
 But there is sign of a change. No longer shall 
 Eve's children have all the sunshine and joy. 
 Eve's other children are at last awake. They are 
 claiming their just share of the good things. And 
 justice will come to those who work and the 
 workers can no longer be hidden in the cave. 
 They are demanding an equal chance with the rest. 
 
 Blind justice must no longer be blind simply 
 to the claims of the weak or those forced into the 
 recess. Laws must not be uniform only in their 
 treatment of the strong. The law must be for all, 
 the light for all, opportunity for all, justice for all. 
 
 In other words, this whole struggle we are 
 seeing is to put all these children back on a like 
 basis. It's going to take time and labor but — 
 it's going to happen. 
 
22 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 Nor shall the children who were put in the cave, 
 when they come out, force the strong children 
 into the cave. All shall be rewarded who work. 
 But reward shall be the wage for work. And work 
 shall not be the lot of only part of Eve's children, 
 nor shall reward be for part of Eve's children. Jus- 
 tice will come when all of Eve's children shall be 
 out in the open, in the light, with equal oppor- 
 tunity for all, and there are no "other children." 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 23 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 
 WHEN our east coast colonies looked upon 
 the Alleghanies and the Appalachians as "the 
 rough country of the far west," when they became 
 the theatre in which were staged the bold events 
 that threw a crown out of a hemisphere, George 
 Washington became the leading actor. Out of that 
 immortal band of worthy players, he became the 
 worthiest. He was the bravest among the brave in 
 war, one of the wisest among the wise in peace, 
 a hero not alone of his country but of the world, 
 a hero not alone of his own time but of all time. 
 
 When the scales of war in which were poised 
 the glory of the British crown and the liberties 
 of a new democracy sank low the hopes of an 
 American republic, and the black ensign of despair 
 hung over a new world, Washington alone ad- 
 vanced the flag of courage. 
 
 As a warrior he was always cautious, ^et unex- 
 pectedly bold. He "played safe" only as far as 
 was consistent with rapid action. Unlike the 
 great Corsican, Washington showed military skill 
 equal to building up a great nation but never 
 was he an hour tardy, behind the wakeful watch- 
 fulness of the enemy thereby effecting his own 
 undoing and his country's destruction. In every 
 crisis Washington was THERE. 
 
24 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 Before the dark angry waters of the Delaware, 
 he heard not the storm but his country's call. 
 Unlike the great army chiefs of the old world, 
 his cause was not domination; he sought no glory 
 on a throne, no court built upon infamy and the 
 execration of mankind. 
 
 His heart softened to the rigors of war; he 
 mourned in the field of victory; he wept over the 
 captive spy while his firm hand sanctioned the 
 warrant of death. 
 
 Ardent and intrepid as Caesar in the field, in 
 camp he kneeled, a humble suppliant to the God 
 of all righteous armies. 
 
 At Yorktown he closed a war as glorious to 
 himself as to the cause he had won. His army 
 had come to believe that he could do no wrong. 
 His soldiers so loved him that many beseeched 
 him to accept a crown, the very thing he had 
 fought to down. Unlike Caesar he thought little 
 of himself, much of his people, little of his honors, 
 much of his ideals. Love of country was his 
 passion. He was the magistrate who knew no 
 glory but his country's good. 
 
 "He seemed to be the father of the multi- 
 tude," declared one of his soldiers. While another 
 at his death said, "Though our first thanks 
 are due to God, we must gratefully remember 
 Washington, the first among human benefactors." 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 25 
 
 Though the country he fathered has attempted 
 to honor him by naming its capital after him — 
 though we have built the highest monument in 
 the world to his memory, we are untrue to our 
 heritage if we love liberty less than did he, If we 
 selfishly seek our own advantage against human- 
 ity's good, or if we be less willing to use the 
 sword when it Is the only means left to defend 
 the liberties he left us. 
 
 There is but one way for every American to 
 honor Washington and that is — even though we 
 cannot be as great — we must strive to be as good. 
 
26 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 SUNSHINE 
 
 IIGHT is the symbol of life. If, when the 
 ^ world is in shadow, man wishes to signal the 
 existence of life he holds up a light. 
 
 The locomotive throws ahead of it a stream 
 of light which heralds the coming of a great, 
 throbbing thing.- 
 
 Light is the most wonderful of all visible things 
 because it makes all things visible. 
 
 Light is the great painter. Red, green, blue 
 and yellow are one in darkness; they are different 
 things in light. Light beautifies. "There is no 
 object," says Emerson, "so foul that intense light 
 will not make it beautiful. " 
 
 As light is the symbol of life, so also is dark- 
 ness the symbol of death. We choose the day 
 through which to live; the night through which 
 to sleep. 
 
 Fill your life with light; don't be a dead one. 
 Tear away from your window the shutters of 
 anger, hatred, envy, jealousy and fancied wrongs. 
 Let in the sunshine. The world wastes little 
 time upon the fellow who stands in the shadow 
 of pessimism and gloom. Go into the sunshine 
 business. Radiate happiness; it pays. 
 
 The face that is full of the sunshine spirit not 
 only helps itself but helps all who encounter it. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 27 
 
 just as the flower of the field is brightened by the 
 morning sun. Be like the sun. Spread your 
 happiness everywhere; give it to everybody. It is 
 the most wholesome and helpful of all contagions. 
 
 The sun is always at work. It molds the flower 
 into fruit. You cannot be filled with sunshine and 
 be idle. The sunny spirit is always busy at some 
 unselfish service. It goes through life building a 
 chain, each link of which represents a day of help- 
 ful endeavor. 
 
 To make ourselves sunny we must make our- 
 selves worthy. Our worth is measured not by 
 ourselves but by others. 
 
 The sun would be of little use to this world 
 were it shut up within curtains, its warmth and 
 light kept to itself. So with you, you can do no 
 good when you do only for yourself. He who 
 thinks only of and works only for himself dies 
 unloved. He has spread no sunshine about him. 
 He has given no heart warmth to the world. 
 
 Real cheerfulness is not merely a matter of 
 inheritance; it is more than a passive virtue. 
 The most sunny are the most strenuous, they who 
 do most, give most, help most. 
 
 Throw sunshine on all the paths you walk and 
 cross in life. The world is always better for being 
 bright and warm. 
 
28 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 THE OPEN MIND 
 
 PRECEDENT and prejudice are the principal 
 obstructions to progress. The latter, is an 
 unmitigated hindrance; the former has a value 
 which it loses only through slavish devotion to it. 
 
 To hold righteous respect for the past is a vir- 
 tue; to bind the future to the limitations of the 
 past is a weakness and a wrong. 
 
 The very precedent we are often prone to wor- 
 ship was at one time new. The world is advanced 
 by those who make precedent rather than by those 
 who follow. 
 
 The great masters of art are not those who 
 copy, but those who create. So with all things. 
 
 The marvelous moment of existence, be it in 
 thought, plan, invention, or living creature, is 
 birth. Then it is that it is new. 
 
 The man who is up to the times must be a little 
 ahead of the times. He cannot be afraid of adven- 
 ture or chary of that which is new. They contribute 
 to progress who bring into the world new ideas, new 
 visions, new instruments, and new structures. 
 
 Day after day we may deal with the same 
 things and work in established ways, but we do 
 these things best when we constantly seek to 
 approach our work from new viewpoints. Look 
 at your job constantly from new angles. Only in 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 29 
 
 that way will your job grow. You will find both 
 elements and opportunities that you never sus- 
 pected, possibilities of which you never dreamed. 
 Train your mind to discover. Be open to con- 
 viction. Court counsel. Even the people with 
 whom you come in constant contact may hold 
 within them surprising wells of priceless inspira- 
 tion. 
 
 Worth asserts itself in things new. Personal 
 growth and success depend upon one's willing- 
 ness to be open-minded; to eagerly reach after 
 new things. Always seize upon and use the best 
 whether it be old or new, but do not despise the 
 new because it has not been tried. Try it. Only 
 by trying is the good in new things proven. 
 
 Don't let your life be held fast in the vise of 
 prejudice. Get loose. Go on the still hunt for the 
 new; you will grow strong in the pursuit. "New 
 occasions teach new duties. Time makes ancient 
 good uncouth," said the progressive Lowell. 
 
 Had we been bound by precedent the torch 
 would never have been laid aside for the candle, 
 nor the candle for the incandescent lamp. So 
 with ideas, instruments and institutions. 
 
 Think in terms of tomorrow rather than of 
 yesterday. Who ever saw an engineer drive a fast 
 express by looking behind .f* Be like the engineer: 
 look ahead; and go ahead. 
 
30 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 THE LIFE APART 
 
 NOTHING has contributed more to the prob- 
 lems of capital and labor, to embittered rela- 
 tions between employer and employee than physi- 
 cal, mental and moral distances — the distances 
 that strain the elastic cords of human sympathy 
 until they snap. 
 
 The curse of Ireland, as the whole world knows, 
 has been the ABSENT landlord. 
 
 So with our great business and industrial 
 concerns; they who own and control these huge, 
 human machines live in a different world from 
 those who toil. The captain of industry who 
 has not encountered labor difficulties is he who 
 is always accessible to his workers, who is within 
 hail of his men, who knows the joy of salu- 
 tation and greetings exchanged. The factory 
 owner who is out of reach of his men is the 
 industrial operator who is first to encounter labor 
 disputes. 
 
 The directors of a great steel plant could, 
 if they would, be big brothers to the shirt- 
 less fellows who feed their furnaces. But be- 
 cause they choose not to know these shovelers, 
 these men standing at the coal pits feel only a 
 great, but inhuman power driving them from 
 behind. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 31 
 
 "Aristocracy is always cruel," declared Wen- 
 dell Phillips. Acquaintance is the secret of peace- 
 ful human relations. 
 
 "Don't introduce me to that man," once said 
 a famous politician. "I feel it my political duty 
 to hate him, and you can't hate a man when you 
 know him." 
 
 All men possess more good than bad. You 
 cannot really KNOW a man but that over and 
 above all his faults you are compelled to like 
 him. 
 
 Frenchmen like Frenchmen because they live 
 together; they disliked Englishmen only because 
 they live apart. When a common cause gave 
 the common battle and they were thrown together, 
 comrades in a common column, then they came to 
 know each other. Through fellowship they found 
 fraternity. 
 
 Whatever kind of a worker you are, however 
 high grade a workman you may be, if you are a 
 workman be a fellow workman. Fellowship is the 
 world's great need. Fellowship is the foe of dis- 
 cord and war. 
 
 Riches are good when they help to cement 
 and bind; they are bad when they separate a man 
 from his fellows. The spirit of exclusiveness is the 
 deepest insult you can give the world. Riches 
 multiply rather than lessen responsibility. 
 
32 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 Labor hates the mill owner who demands divi- 
 dends by telegraph and wants his responsibili- 
 ties delivered by ox-cart. 
 
 Wisdom grows in this good old world and we 
 are beginning to be wise enough to recognize a 
 murderer even though he be a wireless sinner who 
 murders at long distance. Guilt does not always 
 rest singly upon the outraged and outworn mind 
 and body that feels the heavy pressure of a hand 
 it cannot see. 
 
 The Great Master who moved amongst us 
 nineteen hundred years ago tried to teach us to 
 live near, for one another. To live apart, to be for- 
 getful is sin. It is a denial of Him. In denying 
 Him we deny ourselves. There are no riches in 
 this world so priceless as the wealth of friendships. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 2,3, 
 
 GOOD HUMOR 
 
 IAUGHTER has often been called the most 
 -^ infectious thing in the world. It is also the 
 most antiseptic. Nothing is more wholesome 
 than the insight and the eye-sight that see the 
 funny side of things. The soul who enters life 
 equipped with a generous fund of good humor is 
 practically immune from the corrosion of cark- 
 ing care. 
 
 The organ of good nature is governed by vol- 
 untary muscles. Good humor is not alone a gift; 
 it is an attainment; it can be cultivated; it is a 
 state you can wish and will yourself into. Turn 
 the corners of your mouth up and the world 
 looks vastly better than when seen with the 
 corners of the mouth turned down. 
 
 Cultivate sanitary ideas and you will acquire 
 the antiseptic good nature. 
 
 Protect yourself against taking yourself too 
 seriously. Do not judge your mission too tragi- 
 cally. 
 
 Think also of the other fellow. Acquire a 
 healthy interest in your neighbor. Find sympathy 
 with his aspirations. Good humor and good fel- 
 lowship are inseparable partners. Good humor 
 begets sympathy. Keep the mind turning out- 
 ward and the mouth corners turning upward and 
 
34 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 you are reasonably sure of a comfortable voyage 
 through troubled waters. 
 
 Good humor is warm. It fosters a sympathetic 
 fellow feeling with all forms of life. 
 
 True humor is born not so much in the brain 
 as in the heart. Its essence is love. Its best 
 expression is not in laughter, but in the still under- 
 standing smile that lies far deeper. 
 
 The soul that owns good humor is equipped 
 with both ornament and armor. 
 
 The command of humor does much to distin- 
 guish men, and ofttimes makes men distinguished. 
 
 The philosophers who have lightened the most 
 burdens and illuminated the most paths in this 
 perplexed world are they who have reached their 
 readers through the appeal of good humor. For 
 it is humor, tender and all embracing that, as the 
 sunshine, lifts the shadows out of dark places and 
 brightens the way for those who could not clearly 
 see. It is the open sesame to human hearts. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 35 
 
 EASTER 
 
 CHRIST did not stop at Calvary. He carried 
 on. He is the greatest force in the world 
 today. The advance of each century is marked 
 by a new interpretation and a truer application 
 of His teaching. The contribution of the twen- 
 tieth century will be the invasion of His spirit 
 into industry. The Golden Rule is becoming 
 the living creed. 
 
 The resurrection is symbolic of the moral 
 order of the world, expressed through the tran- 
 scendent character of Jesus. This controlling 
 spirit of the world moves as nature through the 
 cycles of birth and death. The parable of the 
 seed needs no repeating. 
 
 The greatest movements of man follow its 
 symbolism. Out of the darkness and oppres- 
 sion of the seventeenth century sprang religious 
 liberty; the Pilgrim fathers braved the perils and 
 hardships of an unknown land because, through- 
 out the known world, liberty was dead. Through 
 their suffering and sacrifice it was resurrected. 
 
 "Immortality," said Channing, "is the glorious 
 discovery of Christianity." 
 
 And Henry Ward Beecher told us that "The 
 Easter spirit is the manifest truth of our trust 
 that nothing good is ever lost." 
 
36 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 The story of the Resurrection is the story of the 
 eternal Hfe; it is the story of the unending growth 
 of good. Nothing good ever dies. 
 
 The monuments of nations are all protests 
 against nothingness after death. We mold into 
 statues the images of our great because they 
 live; we chisel into hardest stone the words of 
 masters whose military spirit goes marching on. 
 History is the story of the unending triumphs 
 of the great. Only to the pessimist and to the 
 opponent of progress is the immediate absolute. 
 He does not feel life in death or fulfillment in 
 denial. 
 
 In every child there is born the Easter promise. 
 The mother invests in it the hope of a great good. 
 It is the nursing of that hope that fulfills the 
 Easter faith, that advances the world, that 
 prompts us to follow in His steps. 
 
 Life is always new; life is eternal. And the 
 Christ lesson never stops; it goes on, forever on; 
 and out of new occasions it teaches new duties. 
 Each new birth and each new religious emotion, 
 no matter how ancient or honored may be the 
 church whence it comes, must if true to the ever- 
 lasting Christ, find new conscious and social 
 expression. It is the Creator's way; we must be 
 obedient to the divine law. Nature is bent on 
 perfecting herself. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 37 
 
 The spirit of Easter is the spirit of awakening 
 of renewed Hfe, of inspiration and of high resolve. 
 It is the symbol of progress; it is the call to do 
 and to build the good things taught by the 
 Master. To do less is to lose the Easter lesson, 
 to worship a star, forgetting the sun by whose 
 light it shines. 
 
38 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 WORK 
 
 NO job is so difficult and none so dishearten- 
 ing as that of avoiding work. The idler is 
 the man above all others to be pitied. 
 
 Work is for the living. He who avoids work 
 never lives for he never comes to know the joy of 
 doing, the contentment that comes from creating, 
 the glory of serving; nor does he know the luxury 
 of recreation and relaxation, for without work 
 there is no rest. 
 
 Repose is not the aim of life. Work is the aim; 
 repose the pay. 
 
 The universal cure for misery is work, for it gives 
 a strength both to the body and to the mind. 
 
 Every man wants to think that he is worth 
 something. No man can know what he is worth 
 without work. Work is the test. The man who 
 is afraid to work will find that in the end it pays 
 better to work out than to rust out. 
 
 The man who avoids work because he wants 
 tranquillity of mind will find that he has lost the 
 capacity to work when that tranquillity comes, 
 for tranquillity comes only through work. 
 
 Man's record in this world is the record of his 
 work, not of his recreation. 
 
 Work is man's noblest expression. All men wish 
 to be noble. All men wish to leave a record. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 39 
 
 Therefore even they who are idle feign work; 
 they wish, at least, to appear as workers. 
 
 Genius is sometimes looked upon as a God- 
 given means of making a record without work. 
 However God-given genius may be, it never 
 accomplishes anything without work. The men of 
 greatest genius have always been amongst the 
 most plodding, hard working and intent, — their 
 chiefest genius being their genius for work. It is 
 men of their kind who know that no true work is 
 menial. They who look upon their work as menial 
 are they who fail to invest in that work the 
 patience, persistence, and power which lifts them 
 above it. 
 
 But with all this, work alone is not living. 
 It is the means of living. Man was not made for 
 work; work was made for man. The man is lost 
 who is servant to his work. The strong man is 
 always master of his job. 
 
 Work is an educator and he who would be 
 educated always seeks work which is above him, 
 to which he must grow rather than work beneath 
 him to which he must descend. 
 
 Real rest comes not through idleness, but 
 through change of work. We have work to do to 
 gain our bread. We have other work to do for 
 our delight. Both must be done heartily, strenu- 
 ously, and with a will, — else we fail. 
 
40 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 POWER 
 
 ALL men have a love of power but not an equal 
 Ijl capacity to gratify it. Power is something 
 more than mere energy; it is a directed force. 
 Whatever tension the steam gauge on a locomo- 
 tive may show, the engine is a lifeless thing with- 
 out a brain-guided hand to move its throttle. 
 
 Power is force under control. The waterfall 
 is wasted energy; harnessed to a wheel it pro- 
 duces mill power. 
 
 Concentration is the secret of power. Hitch 
 your energy to some fixed purpose. 
 
 To be noble is to be powerful. Negative good- 
 ness is never a contributing goodness; positive 
 goodness is. Positive goodness has purpose. Ener- 
 gy put to purpose is power. 
 
 The world always makes way for the man of 
 power and he makes room for many. So does real 
 power direct for good. 
 
 The men of greatest power are they who give to 
 the world a spiritual rather than a material force. 
 
 Napoleon was great because he directed his 
 power to make himself a crowned master of men. 
 
 Lincoln was greater because he used his power 
 to make men masters of themselves. 
 
 Christ was the greatest because He used His 
 power to spread the glory of the Golden Rule over 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 41 
 
 the world, teaching men that they serve them- 
 selves best when they serve others. 
 
 His example brings to every man, woman 
 and child the simple lesson that in all the world 
 there is no sweeter thing than a soft and gentle 
 power which unceasingly works for the good of 
 many. 
 
 So it is that they who have the most power in the 
 world are they who are most generous in heart. 
 
 Power cannot have too gentle an expression, 
 for its opponent is always weakness. 
 
 Manhood is measured by the use made of its 
 power. 
 
 And as power is purpose, scholarship is never 
 the measure of man's power. At best it is but 
 a source of helpful equipment. What one WANTS 
 to know is often of more value than what one 
 knows. It is not what you have done that makes 
 you do; it is what you WISH to do that makes 
 you go on. 
 
 There is many a college-bred man amply 
 equipped with book lore who, like the locomo- 
 tive, with safety valve sizzling, stands still be- 
 cause he lacks purpose; he has no power to handle 
 the throttle; he knows not how or where to go. 
 Mere information is never knowledge unless it is 
 usable, and it is usable only when it is well ar- 
 ranged, concentrated and digested with power. 
 
42 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 There is no strength in bread and milk until 
 the stomach gives their latent forces a fixed pur- 
 pose; then they translate themselves into power. 
 
 So gain that you may give, for in giving and 
 not in getting lies the secret which all men covet 
 — the secret of real power. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 43 
 
 WISDOM 
 
 COMMON sense is the usual definition for that 
 mental attitude which is the opposite of rash- 
 ness. Wisdom rises superior to both. 
 
 Wisdom is always changing, always new; it is 
 never constant because it is the best judgment 
 of the hour. It is the interpretation of the accu- 
 mulated knowledge of the past applied and di- 
 rected towards the needs of the future, therefore 
 that which once was wisdom may be only the 
 common sense and not the uncommon sense of 
 today. 
 
 Wisdom has been called the abstract of the 
 past and the promise of the future. 
 
 Experience is the mother of wisdom as imagina- 
 tion is the mother of science. Wise men draw 
 their lessons from the experiments of life; they 
 develop those experiments into the achievements 
 of the world. 
 
 Wisdom is seldom gained without both sacri- 
 fice and suffering, for these are the component 
 parts of experience. 
 
 Wisdom comes only to those who think. One 
 may know many things and still, not being a 
 thinker, may miss wisdom. Wisdom consists not 
 so much in the knowing of things as in the capa- 
 city to choose and follow those things which con- 
 
44 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 duce most surely to our lasting happiness and 
 helpfulness. 
 
 The greatest heritage which a man can bequeath 
 to the world is wisdom. It is such legacies, and 
 only such, that advance civilization and mark 
 the forward march of time through succeeding 
 generations. 
 
 To know gives you power, hence, wise men 
 are unafraid. They know that the idea that is not 
 dangerous is not worthy of being tried, for every 
 new effort has within it the possibility of disap- 
 pointment. Wisdom advances cautiously but it 
 always advances. Socrates and Savonarola, 
 Jesus and Lincoln dared their wisdom against 
 the world's unbelief. Men who confront the 
 world with new ideas are always at bay with the 
 world. 
 
 The ideas that most benefit man are seldom 
 welcomed by him on first presentation. 
 
 Wise men are always generous and firm. They 
 who lack this wisdom misunderstand both the 
 generosity and the firmness of the wise. The 
 mob may be moved by passion. The wise man may 
 control the mob not because he banishes passion 
 but because he can purify it. 
 
 Wisdom is not a pretence; it wears no 
 mask. Owls look wise as college professors some- 
 times do. But true wisdom never poses; it per- 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 45 
 
 forms. The world's greatest deeds have, for the 
 most part, been done unknowingly. The masses 
 applaud only after they have seen the worth of 
 wisdom through the perspective of time. Real 
 wisdom is unaffected. The reward of wisdom 
 comes through the gratification of fearlessly fol- 
 lowing to the end a ripe judgment and a quick- 
 ened conscience. 
 
46 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 FAILURE 
 
 PROCRASTINATION is the mother of fail- 
 ure. Tomorrow is never the day of achieve- 
 ment. Use today; it is the instrument at hand. 
 The promise to do better next time is worth but 
 little; the resolution to do better now is worth 
 much. To fail at all is to fail completely. But 
 the false yardstick is too often applied in the 
 measurement of success by a thoughtless and 
 materialistic world. 
 
 The agencies of success are wisdom, sincerity 
 and fidelity. Too often we seem to fail because 
 we do not know how to spin the flax God gives us 
 upon the wheel we know not how to use. But no 
 sincere endeavor faithfully and conscientiously 
 pursued ever results in failure as failure is meas- 
 ured by the better perspective of distant years. 
 
 "However things may seem 
 No good thing is failure 
 No evil thing success," 
 
 is the poet's song which carries the whole truth of 
 honest efi"ort. 
 
 The near view of things may seem to disprove 
 this faith but the long measure proves it true. 
 We observe the rascal reaching a position of polit- 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 47 
 
 ical power. But the rascal with his misdirected 
 energies passes from power, and time gratefully 
 erases his name from the memory of man. It is 
 the Washingtons, and Jeffersons, and Lincolns 
 of history, traveling through repeated seeming 
 failures and real discouragements, who triumph 
 in the records of the world. 
 
 We see about us men of great commercial 
 power whose affluence inspires unworthy envy; 
 who have acquired their money through energies 
 neither designed nor directed to benefit others 
 than themselves. If you would call their lives 
 successful read the pages of history a hundred 
 years later and you will find that they not only 
 failed but are forgotten. 
 
 The world does not measure success by read- 
 ing what a man gets out of the world but by what 
 he has given to the world. 
 
 The Star of Bethlehem shone above a city in 
 which there were rich men who had, according to 
 the standard of the time, fine houses, ease and 
 comfort, — men who were smart in the market and 
 clever in the art of money changing. But who 
 among those who were in the light of that fair 
 star lives in the world today.? A Child Who was 
 manger-born and Who so failed according to 
 the standard of His time that He was put to 
 death upon a cross. The sincere purpose and great 
 
48 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 love which burned in His heart warm and light the 
 whole world today. Who now will say He failed? 
 
 In another country and in an ancient time 
 surrounded with all the luxuries of a princely pal- 
 ace, there was the purposeful Buddha who heard 
 the cry of the suffering and who saw with sympa- 
 thetic eye the sick, the aged and the over-worked. 
 All the wealth of his principality could not give 
 him a jolly time in the midst of such scenes. He 
 gave himself to those who needed the help and 
 comfort he had to give and today his name is 
 worshipped while other princes of his ancient 
 time are lost to the memory of man. 
 
 So too with the stories of Socrates, of Savon- 
 arola, Martin Luther; so too with Christopher 
 Columbus who sailed unknown seas against the 
 whole world's unbelief, even while his sailors 
 planned to bring his great enterprise to swift 
 decay; and so too with John Brown whose "soul 
 goes marching on." 
 
 They only fail who refuse to DO or who when 
 doing refuse to do that which is for the good of 
 many. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 49 
 
 MUSIC 
 
 WHILE many interpreters see many things 
 in the motifs of music, all concede it to be 
 an art of both power and purpose. 
 
 There is no truer axiom than that music is the 
 universal language. 
 
 Music is the one common denominator of all 
 nations, of all races, and all creeds. It is the one 
 voice to which all people listen with full con- 
 tentment. 
 
 Music may be analyzed as wild sounds refined 
 into time and tune. Harmony is its exacting law. 
 Emerson has called it "the poor man's Parnassus." 
 It is he too who tells us that even 
 
 " .... in the mud and scum of things 
 There's always, always something sings." 
 
 From the mire and meadow to the symphony 
 orchestra and cathedral choir music is both an 
 elemental and an essential part of the living world. 
 It is the birds' contribution to the restful wild 
 life of the woods. It tames the serpent; soothes 
 the beast; and according to its mood consoles or 
 stimulates man. 
 
 Music is the element in life that makes man 
 work and play and rest the better. Emotion rather 
 
50 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 than thought is its sphere. But emotion mothers 
 thought. Music stimulates imagination and re- 
 fines reason. Next to poetry, therefore, which 
 music often inspires, music becomes the mightiest 
 of arts. Poetry only finds its best fulfillment 
 when it is augmented by the interpretation of 
 music. For poetry is the song of reason; music 
 the song of the soul. The two give forth the su- 
 preme appeal of both the head and the heart. 
 
 In the truest sense music is not a study; it is a 
 sympathy. True knowledge of music rests in the 
 capacity to think in sounds, not the mere memoriz- 
 ing of finger maneuvering. See deep enough into 
 the heart of man and there as in the heart of na- 
 ture you find a constant hunger for music, — a 
 longing to find the discords in thought and sound 
 woven into harmony. 
 
 In its purity music may consecrate all forms 
 of art by lifting them into its own atmosphere 
 and there governing them, as a strong soul may 
 govern the body. 
 
 Every touch of music mellows the hardships of 
 life. 
 
 Thoreau recognized music as so great a force 
 for good that he called it the arch-reformer. 
 "There is something in the effect of an harmoni- 
 ous voice," he declares, "upon the disposition of 
 its neighborhood analogous to the law of crystals. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 51 
 
 It centralizes itself and sounds like the published 
 law of things. When I hear music, I fear no 
 danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am 
 related to the earliest times, and to the latest." 
 
 Music lifts out of the finite into the infinite. 
 
 "I care not who may make a people's laws so 
 long as I may write their songs," is the assertion 
 known to every school child. It is an axiom burd- 
 ened with a powerful political truth. Music has 
 a potent power for good above and beyond the 
 power of legislative halls or of courts. When all 
 else fails music may reach the sensitive chamber 
 of man's soul. It was music that restored reason 
 to the slumbering Saul. 
 
 Music is a leveler. It is democracy's agent. 
 It appeals to all classes and reduces all classes to 
 one class. Even the king pleads for his piper. 
 
 Music is yet to be, as in some places it has al- 
 ready become, the city's proudest and best gift to 
 its people. Symphony orchestras and well trained 
 bands are even now frequently looked upon as 
 town possessions holding a greater share of the 
 city's pride than Boards of Trade or boastful bank 
 balances. 
 
 "Show me a city that loves music," said the 
 late Sir Edwin Arnold, "and I will show you a city 
 that loves both industry and peace. " 
 
52 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 THE NEW HEROISM 
 
 CENTURIES of monarchism trained the minds 
 of tribes and nations to believe that the 
 noblest of trades is that of war. 
 
 Sculpture has been largely given over to the 
 artistic eulogy of the heroes of conquest. The 
 warrior has long been lifted up as the model of 
 nobility. Civilization, in its process of refinement, 
 is teaching a nobler nobility. 
 
 When knighthood was in flower the chief 
 warrior was king, and his nobles were his killers. 
 Militarism was the government of monarchism. 
 
 Useful trades and occupations, if not quite 
 degrading, were at least beneath the dignity of 
 soldiery. Physical power rather than head or 
 heart power was worshipped. The military in- 
 stinct corrupted religion. Many still cling to the 
 notion of a Czar-God, — the divine paternal power 
 that must be feared, before which we crouch in 
 terror and misgiving, instead of a Jesus-God with 
 whom we find ourselves linked in bonds of love, 
 tenderness, and helpfulness, — the God of co- 
 operation and encouragement. 
 
 The last half century has found this primitive 
 militant instinct expressing itself in commercial 
 terms in our own country so famous for its indus- 
 trial prosperity. Men covet the compliment of 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 53 
 
 "captain of industry," "king of finance," or 
 "Napoleon of Trade." 
 
 In our own political history we find written the 
 story of militant and merciless commercialism 
 laying hold of courts and legislative chambers as 
 once the king's men stormed castle walls and cap- 
 tured citadels. 
 
 The agencies of education are bringing us the 
 better light to see the better way and find the finer 
 values along the way. 
 
 Through the ages past men have coveted power 
 for power's sake whether it be with spear and 
 armor or with the cunning that corrals money. 
 Even our colleges and universities have been 
 known to lend themselves to this conscienceless 
 craving for conquest and have decorated with 
 degrees the donors of halls and dormitories. 
 
 But into the twentieth century there breaks 
 a new and truer light of truth. Our colleges 
 are beginning to learn that even scholarship and 
 scientific skill are of secondary purpose; the 
 first duty of any school is to make MEN and 
 WOMEN. 
 
 Out of this comes a new order of things. The 
 people once belonged to kings; now kings belong 
 to the people. In this ethical evolution the real 
 man is no longer the hero of conquest; success is 
 measured less by what you can get than by what 
 
54 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 you can give. The world Is less interested in who 
 you are than in what you are. 
 
 Commercialism is becoming the instrument of 
 democracy more than that of individuals. It is 
 nobler to feed and clothe and house than to kill. 
 There is greater honor in helping a man to get on 
 his feet than to hit him on the head and knock 
 him off his feet. Society is beginning to recognize 
 the heroism of the man who helps another to 
 get a farm rather than of him who takes away 
 the farm. 
 
 In the new order of things laws are designed to 
 help and encourage and build up the fortunes of 
 the many rather than to enthrone the few. 
 
Saturday Sermo7iettes 55 
 
 PERSONAL LIBERTY 
 
 ROBINSON CRUSOE enjoyed personal lib- 
 ^ erty until he met Friday. Then he had to 
 divide that liberty. 
 
 England once used her island continent, Aus- 
 tralia, as a dumping ground for her criminals. 
 But given the privileges of personal liberty, they 
 voluntarily worked out a society of law and order; 
 mutual concession was their best protection. 
 
 He who pleads for personal liberty, pleads for 
 lawlessness and loneliness, for unless we obey 
 society we must take the consequence which is 
 isolation from society. 
 
 Society rests not upon science, philosophy, 
 religion or law; it rests upon the conscience of the 
 public and the public is the majority of the people. 
 
 Democratic rights demand at all times that 
 there should be equality of conditions, — that 
 is, equal chance, as the fundamental basis of 
 society. 
 
 To grant a special privilege to a railroad or to a 
 woolen trust is as much a violation of the spirit 
 of democracy and an attack upon society as to 
 grant a special privilege to an outlaw who tries, 
 with or without consent of constitutional powers, 
 to disregard the obligation of individuals, singly 
 or collectively. 
 
56 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 Society is a republic. When an individual at- 
 tempts to give himself privileges at the cost of the 
 public, he at once becomes an enemy to society 
 and traitor to the republic. 
 
 No political representative of the people, chosen 
 by the electorate of the people, can advance his 
 own interest or his friend's interest through legis- 
 lating favoritism to either a brewery or a steel 
 trust, without being a traitor to the society he is 
 chosen to represent. He can only advance the 
 interests of that brewery and that steel trust as 
 far as such advancement will be to the benefit of 
 the public he is chosen to serve. And the brewery, 
 be it noted, never went very far to that end. 
 
 The public official who has asked the people 
 to make him their servant, and who when elected 
 to a public office labors in the interest of the 
 whisky makers, whose business it is to debauch 
 men, or of the sweat shop or of any other enemy 
 of the public welfare, becomes not a servant of 
 the people but an enemy of the people. 
 
 Society is a contract. It is a partnership to 
 advance virtue and to work mutually for per- 
 fection. He who labors for personal liberty works 
 for a repudiation of that contract and for an 
 attack upon society. 
 
 He who is true to society, who is true to the 
 spirit of democracy, labors uncompromisingly 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 57 
 
 and consistently not only for those who live but 
 for those who are yet to come. 
 
 By virtue of such loyalty to society do we find 
 the march of man bringing us ever a little farther 
 along the road than we were yesterday. 
 
58 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 FELLOWSHIP 
 
 HE who possesses the spirit of fellowship, 
 whatever may be his confession of faith, is 
 a disciple of the universal religion. Fellowship 
 is fairness; fairness is the Golden Rule reduced 
 to two syllables. 
 
 Fellowship is the foundation of democracy. 
 Democracy may not mean social equality but it 
 does mean equal chance. Democracy must al- 
 ways mean equal good will, equal hope, encour- 
 agement and opportunity. Fellowship, like democ- 
 racy, means giving every one a square deal. 
 
 Democracy, through the spirit of fellowship, 
 fosters philanthropy but it insists that its philan- 
 thropy be real and that it be IN business rather 
 than AFTER business. 
 
 He cannot boast of the spirit of fellowship who 
 amasses his fortune by paying an unfair wage to his 
 toilers, and then publicly bequeaths to his city an 
 uplift institution for the benefit of those who toil. 
 He who disregards the rights and the welfare of those 
 who work with and for him has missed the golden 
 reward of fellowship which is more priceless and 
 more satisfying than gold or thoughtless applause. 
 
 The spirit of fellowship refuses to coddle beg- 
 gars for the privilege of handing them soup and 
 free lectures. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 59 
 
 Nor can the spirit of fellowship ever be housed 
 In the heart of the gambler; fellowship Insists 
 upon a square deal, — a fair trade. In a fair trade 
 both parties gain; In a gambling transaction one 
 must lose. Whoever engages in any trade where 
 his gain means an inevitable loss to another, is 
 simply a gambler. 
 
 The manufacturer who makes a good useful 
 machine profits by his business as the sales of 
 his machine multiply. And because the machine 
 is perfected to be true to an assignment of labor, 
 every purchaser profits who buys It to put It into 
 useful operation. That Is fair play and commer- 
 cialized fellowship. But the fellow who makes a 
 profit on misrepresentation, who sells fictitious 
 stock, who inflates the valuation of his property 
 with water, is false to the spirit of fellowship how* 
 ever well he may wear his broadcloth, or how- 
 ever piously he may kneel before the altar. Pay- 
 ing a high price for a pew never puts piety into 
 practice. 
 
 In the dark ages barons went out with their 
 armored retainers. They butchered, robbed and 
 ravaged and out of the spoils built a church or 
 endowed a benevolent institution in the name of 
 the church. Yet, then as now, they are enemies 
 of that real religion, the brotherhood of man, for 
 which the Inspiration of the church lived and died. 
 
60 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 The real criterion of a man's life is not how 
 the world will be affected by his bequests, but how 
 they who came in daily contact with him as friends 
 and neighbors, servants and fellow-workers, were 
 aifected by his life. That is the test of character, 
 and character is the measure of a man's spirit of 
 fellowship. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 61 
 
 HOPE 
 
 THERE is no virtue so universal or so help- 
 ful as hope. The human soul clings to it 
 after having relinquished claim to all else. 
 
 Hope is the greatest architect. It plans great 
 futures. To other forces is given the power to 
 realize or to disappoint. 
 
 Hope is desire magnified. It views the distance 
 as through a telescope. 
 
 Hope lives only in the future tense. It is the 
 father of ambition; it is the mother of faith. 
 
 Hope is the prodigal draftsman whose plans 
 are modified and ofttimes mutilated by experi- 
 ence. 
 
 But with all this, hope is the builder of happi- 
 ness. Through its gleaming prospects and prom- 
 ises youth rejoices and age finds happiness in the 
 recollection of hope. 
 
 Though the most treacherous, it is always the 
 most serviceable of all human fancies. The life 
 that rests its future upon a single hope assumes 
 a risk as great as a ship which, in the face of 
 tempest, puts its trust in one small anchor. 
 
 Hope is a great helper, but alone it is power- 
 less to perform. It must be propped up by 
 other sterling virtues if its dreams are to come 
 true. 
 
62 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 "He that lives upon hopes alone will die fast- 
 ing," said the witty Franklin. 
 
 Human life has no surer friend though some- 
 times no greater enemy than hope. It is the 
 miserable man's God. Under the direst calamity 
 it never fails to comfort and to prod, him on. 
 To the presumptuous man who deems labor and 
 patience not worth while, hope will act as a 
 devil which smooths his way for a time, then sud- 
 denly breaks his neck. 
 
 Hope is liberal but stern. She readily agrees 
 to do great things for you but she always insists 
 that you, too, do your full part, else she will 
 fail you. 
 
 Like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, 
 all else forgot in its excess, hope brings pain as the 
 disappointing reward. 
 
 Hope is a necessity. Where there is no hope 
 there is no endeavor. Dilute your hopes with 
 patience, purpose and practice. 
 
 However frequently our hopes may seem to be 
 frustrated no man is lost unless he extinguish 
 hope. 
 
 The man of power never leaps from pleasure 
 to pleasure but from hope to hope. It is hope that 
 carries us, willing toilers, to the end. 
 
 Take hope from the heart of man and you make 
 him a beast of prey; put hope into the heart of 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 63 
 
 man and you put him on the high road with im- 
 pulse and the possibiHties of power. 
 
 Like the sun, hope casts the shadow of our 
 burdens behind us and ever makes the future 
 look better than the past. 
 
64 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 IDEALISM 
 
 AT no time in the world's history has there 
 JLA. been so general a thirst for righteousness as 
 there is today. With the awakening of what we 
 call the civic conscience and the scientific philan- 
 thropy, which scores of our highest type men and 
 women are studying as a profession in the schools, 
 there has come a new understanding as to our rela- 
 tion to the community and an almost religious 
 fervor and enthusiasm with which the ordinary 
 citizen regards his task not as a means for bread- 
 winning merely, but as his contribution to the 
 world. 
 
 Never before has man been able to go through 
 a long and busy life with so many ideals and come 
 out at the end with them all intact and untar- 
 nished. 
 
 In olden times it was from knight or saint that 
 we expected our deeds of valor and humanity. 
 Some of us are so accustomed to that ancient point 
 of view that we are blind to the conspicuous 
 courage and idealism of the ordinary men who 
 surround us. 
 
 The statesman of today lives for a larger pur- 
 pose than did the statesman of yesterday. And 
 he faces a stricter test. He is under the light of a 
 purer ideal. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 65 
 
 The political intrigues of the last generation 
 accepted without comment by our fathers, sicken 
 us; and as the old order changeth the remnants of 
 that order are pitiable objects, shrinking from the 
 limelight of today. They need our compassion 
 rather than our censure. The new ideal is their 
 accuser, and we must not forget in judging them 
 personally that they are the product of their 
 time and that we in our era see clearer, and seeing, 
 of necessity are better. 
 
 Our conceptions of " cleverness, " '' shrewdness, " 
 "business" have changed entirely from the old 
 idea. The man who sells his conscience for money, 
 no matter at how high a price, is condemned as 
 never before. The journalist who "hires out" to 
 write what he does not believe, is rated in the pub- 
 lic mind with the soldier of antiquity, who be- 
 trayed his country. 
 
 William Winter, the dramatic critic, who, when 
 the theater trust brought too strong pressure on 
 his venal employers, gave up a position made 
 famous by thirty years of truthful criticism, rather 
 than betray his unsigned, unspoken compact with 
 the theater-going public to tell them the truth as 
 he saw it, is the type of our latter day heroes. 
 
 And this great new idea of righteousness has 
 come in the face of accusation that the church 
 has failed in its work of inspiration. Perhaps the 
 
66 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 church has been guilty of compromise. Perhaps 
 it has lagged in its leadership and allowed the 
 divine fire, which must of necessity light the way 
 of human aspirations, to be seized by the hand of 
 laymen. Nevertheless the procession toward ideals 
 keeps up its march — steady and strong. The 
 light burns clearer and brighter with each step 
 forward and whosoever carries the beacon light 
 that leads us on, he is the anointed of the Lord, 
 be he in cassock or in overalls. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 67 
 
 CLOTHES 
 
 IT takes a very brave or a very foolish person 
 to be indifferent to clothes. They have been 
 scorned by ascetics and by the indolent of all ages, 
 but a thoughtful person cannot help but be deeply 
 impressed by the profound and significant role 
 they have played in all stages of the world's his- 
 tory. 
 
 The Old Testament from Joseph's coat of many 
 colors lays due emphasis upon raiment, culmi- 
 nating perhaps in the wardrobe of the Queen of 
 Sheba. 
 
 Turn back through the pages of history. How 
 symbolic of gallantry to our minds are the black 
 armor of the Crown Prince at Calais and the 
 white plume of Henry of Navarre! How pregnant 
 with meaning is Hamlet's inky suit! 
 
 In modern times, Eugenie of France has been 
 famed for the extravagance and magnificence of 
 her wardrobe; yet the lack of one garment may 
 have been responsible for the downfall of her 
 husband's empire. When word of the surrender 
 at Sedan reached Paris there was great excite- 
 ment, and free talk of a revolution. Trusted coun- 
 sellors advised Eugenie to appear on horseback 
 before her people and proclaim her own assump- 
 tion of the regency for the benefit of her son and 
 
68 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 the appointment of M. Thiers as prime minister. 
 Good advice! But, alas, in all those well-stocked 
 wardrobes no riding habit was to be found. Hunt- 
 ing costumes there were in plenty, of vivid color- 
 ing and heavy with gold and silver embroidery — 
 just the garments to further inflame a mob that 
 was already athirst for democracy. So the plan 
 was given up and an empire fell — perchance for 
 the lack of a riding habit. 
 
 In his dramas Shakespeare gives us many 
 evidences of his consciousness of the importance 
 of clothes. His advice as to dressing as voiced in 
 Polonius' parting injunction to Laertes is death- 
 less and as true today as when he wrote it: 
 
 "Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy 
 But not expressed in fancy, rich not gaudy, 
 For the apparel oft proclaims the man." 
 
 Carlyle, perhaps the deepest thinker of modern 
 times, has given us the monumental work, " Sar- 
 tor Resartus" — all on the significance of clothes. 
 "What is man without covering," says he, "but 
 a forked radish?" True, as his theme develops, 
 his conception of clothes broadens far from mere 
 wearing apparel; but in that subject alone, the 
 destruction it engenders, and caste feeling it evokes, 
 he finds rich materials for his ripest philosophy. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 69 
 
 Clothes are a great exponent of character. 
 The colorless, unimaginative person follows blind- 
 ly the dictates of fashion, but independent people 
 trust their own ideas as to clothing. Take our 
 American statesmen who have adopted the free 
 and easy sombrero of the West, and note how 
 becoming such headgear is to their characters. 
 They revel in the consummate joy of self-expression. 
 
 Louisa M. Alcott knew human nature when 
 she said that to know her dress set well in the back 
 gave more spiritual comfort to a woman than the 
 finest sermon. That our modern story writers are 
 not oblivious of the fact is shown wherever on 
 stage or in modern fiction, a neglected wife is to 
 emerge from obscurity or a forlorn maiden aunt to 
 burst her chrysalis and blossom forth as a heroine. 
 Then we have always minute descriptions of a 
 shopping trip and the spiritual and physical regen- 
 eration that comes with new clothes. 
 
 The ease of manner, the love of your fellow- 
 man, the joy of living generally, that you expe- 
 rience when becomingly attired, is a condition 
 that repays thought. 
 
70 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 LEADERSHIP 
 
 SENIOR classes In all the colleges and high 
 schools are now on what might be called the 
 home stretch of their academic careers. After 
 their concluding theses, examinations and cele- 
 brations they face the world; they confront a world 
 that needs men and women trained in mind and 
 body but they confront a world which needs, above 
 all else, leaders. 
 
 Every business enterprise, every political party 
 in town, county, state or nation, every political 
 and economic idea, every branch of scientific en- 
 deavor and every religious movement looks to a 
 leader. 
 
 Every senior faces a world filled with oppor- 
 tunities; but it is only the leaders who ever have 
 reached or who ever can reach their goal. They 
 who follow never get there. It is easy to be a 
 follower; it takes hero stuff to be a leader. Cow- 
 ards never lead. Only they with courage can. 
 Patience and persistence are the other two primal 
 qualifications for leadership in any field of en- 
 deavor. Leadership exacts fairness to others, and 
 confidence in oneself. No man can lead another 
 who doubts himself. 
 
 Many a student before he reaches his senior 
 year has learned how to concentrate and apply his 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 71 
 
 own mind; he has learned how to acquire; he has 
 stored power in himself. But he may do all this 
 and be a pathetic failure in the world. High class- 
 room standing never made any man great. That 
 which does make a man great is the power to give 
 others power. 
 
 Just to think out an idea will never advance the 
 idea. Not until you have thought out and then 
 fought out the idea have you made a contribu- 
 tion to the world. Columbus could not prove in 
 Spain that the world was round. To do this he 
 had to take disbelievers with him and with them 
 fight the vast seas. 
 
 Darwin thought out the idea of world creation 
 and evolution as he observed the sluggish forms 
 of lower life on the teeming banks of the Amazon. 
 But he spent a decade to convince himself that he 
 had found a truth, then he fought through a full 
 and busy life to convince the world that the truth 
 he found was of use to the world. 
 
 Resolve to do something, then find something 
 to do. If it be something new make it of use to 
 many. By so doing you take your place among the 
 leaders of men. If it be something old and tried 
 that you do, do it better than it was ever done be- 
 fore, and by so doing show others how best to do 
 it. Then again you lead. Both your name and 
 your labors will endure beyond those of temporal 
 
72 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 heroes, who triumph only in the selfish successes 
 of the hour. 
 
 Translate your information into inspiration 
 and aspiration. So equipped, go to it. DO and 
 then you win. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 73 
 
 SIMPLICITY 
 
 ADELINA PATTI'S test for a singer was 
 iJL never, as you might suppose, *' Can you trill ? 
 Can you imitate a mocking-bird?" No, it was 
 "Can you sing a simple ballad in honest, straight- 
 forward fashion? Such a ballad as 'Home, 
 Sweet Home'?" That was a fair test. 
 
 Simplicity shows quality naked and unadorned. 
 And it is only genuine worth that dares challenge 
 its criticism. 
 
 It takes both courage and the consciousness of 
 value to come before the world without affecta- 
 tion. Our assumption of numberless little airs, 
 poses and prejudices is but the confession and 
 apology for weakness. 
 
 The strong are always simple. Simplicity im- 
 plies strength. The weak hide their defects and 
 their lack with tricks and frills. 
 
 The highest attainments in painting and sculp- 
 ture are not the kaleidoscopic, brightly-colored 
 canvases of battle scenes; not the complex many- 
 turreted statue structures that misguided patriots 
 sometimes erect in memorial of achievement. 
 The greatest picture in the world is of a mother 
 and her babe. As the sense of skill grows strong 
 and the eye keen in its perception of beauty, non- 
 essentials, jewelry and drapery, are stripped off 
 
74 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 and the true artist finds satisfaction in the flow- 
 ing line and satiny flesh texture of the simple 
 human figure. 
 
 In the world of letters, that which lives as 
 poetry is not the half-hearted, labored utterances 
 of a Poet Laureate on some quasi "great" occa- 
 sion. Rather it is the simple stanza that sang 
 itself out of some more obscure poet's heart that 
 binds us all with living bonds through community 
 of feeling and experience. The great song is never 
 the oratorio but the ballad. 
 
 Real worth is always unassuming and natural. 
 High thinking seems automatically to draw unto 
 itself the complement of plain living. Napoleon 
 was always most at ease In the Spartan sim- 
 plicity of camp on the battle field. To his mind, 
 the grandeur and splendor of his French court were 
 a concession to the limitations of the less great. 
 
 Great minds focused as they are on great issues 
 have small patience with the trivialities of cus- 
 tom and convention. 
 
 It Is only when the building is right, true in 
 conception, strong in foundation, pure In out- 
 line, that the architect dares let it stand forth 
 unadorned. 
 
 So with human souls. Our poor terms "home- 
 liness" and "humanness" may stand for the 
 truest aristocracy of human character. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 75 
 
 BOOKS 
 
 OVER the door of the library at Thebes is 
 inscribed ^'MEDICINE FOR THE SOUL." 
 
 When friends are absent or when we meet disap- 
 pointment, when discouragement or loneHness 
 overtakes us, on the book shelves we will always 
 find the master minds of the ages and to us they 
 are always "at home." Their friendship is ever 
 helpful, constant and true. 
 
 He who has learned to love books has found the 
 avenue to contentment. He who has learned to 
 apply the accumulated wisdom of the centuries, 
 which he gathers through books, to the busy 
 world that surrounds him has found the secret of 
 service. 
 
 Books are tools. But as with the carpenter, 
 the dull tool may spoil the best planned job. 
 Books are good as they inspire good and as they 
 are wisely used. Over-indulgence in purposeless 
 reading will stifle endeavor. Prolific reading is 
 not a virtue. Like any other over-indulgence it 
 is a curse. 
 
 "Books are fatal" was the exaggerated declara- 
 tion of Disraeli. They are fatal only when they 
 upset the normal balance and the rational rela- 
 tions between the experiences of the past and the 
 experiments of the present. 
 
76 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 The past can not bind the future to its horizon. 
 A book lives only so long as it is true. 
 
 The good book is that which is fruitful of 
 other books. The good idea is that which gives 
 birth to a better idea. The wise reader finds a 
 new use for old truths. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott once confessed, "I have not 
 read books since I started writing books." 
 
 Books mirror the conditions of life. Society 
 improves by contemplating itself in this mirror 
 as does the individual before the mercury glass. 
 
 If we would know life we must know people. 
 Books bring us into close comradeship not only 
 with the ripest minds of our own time, but with 
 the master minds of all times. 
 
 The book that has won the esteem of ages is 
 worth knowing. It may tell of the youth of the 
 nations which we now know. We may know the 
 paths they are to travel better if we know the 
 road over which they have come. 
 
 It is the writers of great books who have voiced 
 the universal brotherhood and predicted the 
 international patriotism. Through books, as 
 through nothing else, any soul may become the 
 most intimate friend of the greatest souls. 
 
 Through books we become heirs of the spiritual 
 life of all the past. Through them the voices of 
 those who have advanced the world become audi- 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 77 
 
 ble to us. For us the orators declaim, the his- 
 torians recite and the poets sing. They give meaning 
 to the life that is and aspiration for the life to 
 come. Books are, indeed, the imperishable friends 
 of man and medicine for the soul. 
 
78 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 ENEMIES OF SOCIETY 
 
 IN his play, "An Enemy to Society," Ibsen 
 tells the story of a young physician who, in the 
 interests of public health, attacks the polluted 
 water of a community and is thereby socially 
 ostracized and bitterly condemned by the "honest" 
 business men who feel that this exposure will 
 injure the business growth of the place. 
 
 Some years ago Lincoln Steffens declared that 
 his own home town, Greenwich, Connecticut, was 
 as corrupt as any city in America. The indignant 
 trades people demanded that he be compelled to 
 retract. He agreed to debate all comers on the 
 issue in the auditorium of the town hall. The hall 
 was jammed. With blackboard and chalk he 
 charted his demonstration and so proved his con- 
 tention that he silenced the ablest lawyers in the 
 state who attempted to cross-examine him. Yet 
 at the conclusion of that meeting the "good" 
 citizens unanimously passed a resolution declar- 
 ing that they loved their hills and elms, that they 
 honored their women and that they were not 
 corrupt. 
 
 In every community, in every nation, and in 
 every age, they who have fought for cleaner, 
 healthier, more decent and more efficient condi- 
 tions of life have always been denounced by those 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 79 
 
 who are afraid that a better protection of human 
 life or an attempt to make social conditions more 
 wholesome would injure either their purses or a 
 treasured traditional reputation. 
 
 No town any more than an individual can hope 
 to get ahead by standing still. You can't clean 
 the house by hiding the dirt. He who would 
 attempt to hide the faults of his town rather than 
 correct them is, at best, a slovenly patriot and a 
 false friend to the community. 
 
 The most poverty stricken souls are those who 
 feel that their only chance for self betterment 
 comes through opposing progress. 
 
 They may be ever so cultured, ever so widely 
 traveled, and still lack the nobility of citizenship 
 which will make succeeding generations honor 
 and respect them. 
 
 Education does not make a man good or excuse 
 him for being indifferent to his duty to society. 
 Knowledge is valueless unless it quicken the con- 
 science into action, not only for the individual 
 good but for the common good. 
 
 He is the real soldier of society who fights for 
 the correction of evils. He is an enemy of society 
 who tries to hide these evils. To hide or protect 
 an offense against the public is scarcely less a 
 crime than to actually commit the offense. 
 
80 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 DON'T SNEER, CHEER 
 
 WHEN McCormick perfected his reaper his 
 first pubHc demonstration of it failed because 
 the rattle of the machine so frightened the horses 
 that they ran away and demolished his invention. 
 Those who could not invent a reaper sneered. 
 
 When the locomotive first came into use there 
 were those know-it-alls who said that it couldn't 
 last and that it ought to be suppressed by law 
 because it frightened horses and killed folks. 
 
 The know-it-all is pretty sure to be the know- 
 nothing. It is he the poet had in mind when he 
 said: 
 
 "The dull fool's sneer 
 
 Hath ofttimes shot chill palsy through the arm, 
 
 Just lifted to achieve its crowning deed." 
 
 Every great achievement grows out of a noble 
 dream and a consecrated enthusiasm. 
 
 The prophetic vision plans and the fool ridicules. 
 
 We ride on the horseless trolley car today; the 
 telephone enables us to speak to an ear hundreds 
 of miles away; we stitch a garment on a sewing 
 machine in a day which by hand labor would 
 mean the work of a fortnight; all because there 
 have been men who would not yield their dreams 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 81 
 
 to the cutting ridicule of the doubter and the 
 drone. 
 
 Every ship has its barnacles. Don't be a 
 barnacle. Do more than merely hang on to any- 
 thing that comes along. Get an idea, a pur- 
 pose, a plan, a policy — anything that you think 
 the world can use, then propel it. 
 
 List yourself among those who believe that a 
 thing CAN be done. Then convince yourself 
 that YOU can do it. 
 
 Don't be an ostrich with your head in the 
 ground, declaring that because you do not see a 
 thing it can't exist. 
 
 The fellow that sees that which you can't see 
 is not to be laughed at but to be respected and 
 studied. It requires no brains to oppose progress. 
 If you have brains use them. Build. If you 
 haven't brains enough to build something your- 
 self, turn in and help some other fellow. 
 
 Any fool can break a watch; but it requires a 
 man who has faith in himself to make a watch. 
 
 Any brainless fool of an outlaw may wreck a 
 train; but it takes an organized social force to 
 build and operate that train. 
 
 It takes but little to destroy; it takes no more 
 to condemn. He who doubts, ridicules or sneers 
 opposes progress. It is he who, because he cannot 
 rise to the high, expansive powers of enthusiasm, 
 
82 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 would drag the world down to his own miserable 
 pessimistic level. 
 
 The thing which drives the locomotive is the 
 expansive power of steam. Like steam enthusiasm 
 expands; it goes out. Enthusiasm creates all 
 great things. 
 
 The world is glad to fast forget the man who is 
 always ready to cloud the rainbow of enthusiasm 
 with forecasts of failure. 
 
 Don't sneer at the fellows who TRY to do 
 things. Cheer them. The world will love you 
 for it. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 83 
 
 THEY WHO TRIUMPH 
 
 VIEWED from the canyon depth a small hill 
 may hide the loftiest mountain peak. You 
 must put yourself at a distance to see which are 
 the commanding mountains in the range. 
 
 So with men. Neither the day nor yet the year 
 gives the perspective with which to know who 
 will be seen over the line of centuries. That 
 which today appears to be defeat may tomorrow 
 prove to be one of the crowning achievements of 
 time. 
 
 Success cannot be measured by the verdict of 
 the hour. Were this so Hypatia and Galileo, 
 Joan of Arc and Henry Hudson went down to 
 defeat. Yet in the light of time it was they who 
 triumphed. Those who then thought they tri- 
 umphed were the ones defeated and fast for- 
 gotten. 
 
 Byron and Shelley thought their lives failures. 
 Yet because they had something to give to the 
 world better than that which the men about them 
 had to give, they, though they knew it not, 
 triumphed. 
 
 The man is not weak who falls before the power 
 of the mob or who holds to his convictions against 
 the ridicule and condemnation of those who sur- 
 round him. 
 
84 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 Columbus sailed forth on unknown seas against 
 the whole world's unbelief. What scholar that 
 laughed at his mad faith gave two continents to 
 the world? 
 
 The big idea and the consecrated purpose will, 
 alone and unarmed, batter down the most for- 
 midable of thoughtless opposition. 
 
 Fame is but the echo of action. He who puts a 
 truth into action lives. 
 
 The Welsh have an old slogan which reads: 
 *'The truth against the world." The world may 
 kill a man but it cannot kill the truth he brings 
 to the world. 
 
 New truths constantly arise to make old truths 
 fallacies. 
 
 That "scientist" is not a scientist who throws 
 a cloud of doubt about new discoveries and inven- 
 tions. 
 
 Don't ridicule the fellow who thinks he has a 
 new truth. If he believes enough to hold to it 
 against your derision he, more likely than you, 
 will be remembered long. 
 
 Folks laughed at the man who declared that he 
 could propel a boat by steam. The world no 
 longer laughs at Fulton. The world has long used 
 his idea and honors his name. 
 
 Cities used to build walls about themselves 
 because they scoffed at the idea that those walls 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 85 
 
 might be battered down. They could not foresee 
 the great modern gun much less the airship with 
 its falling bombs. Folks who today laugh at the 
 idea of universal peace are as thoughtlessly blind 
 to the sure peace of the future as the Romans were 
 to the destructive powers of a modern giant gun. 
 
 Don't be too cocksure that the other fellow who 
 is cocksure is wrong. It's the fellow who is so 
 cocksure that he is willing to lie down with his 
 faith, to die with his conviction, to never yield 
 his idea, who has advanced this world, step by 
 step, making each tomorrow better than yesterday. 
 
86 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 SILENCE 
 
 BISMARCK'S enemies said of him in their 
 despair, "He knows how to keep silence in 
 seven different languages." It was his baffling 
 taciturnity that blunted the weapons they had 
 forged against him. 
 
 Silence is perhaps the greatest art of conversa- 
 tion. 
 
 Joseph Jefferson is credited with having dis- 
 covered Weber and Fields, the comedians. After 
 seeing them play in an obscure Bowery theater, he 
 hurried to a theatrical manager friend, saying: 
 "They know how to listen." 
 
 A person often gains credit for sense, eloquence 
 and wit, who merely says nothing and does it 
 well. 
 
 Silence indicates both courtesy and considera- 
 tion. It gives the other fellow his turn. It pays 
 him the compliment that his brain may also har- 
 bor some worth-while idea. Every ideal relation 
 savors of reciprocity. Every soul must have a 
 medium and opportunity for self-expression. The 
 one-sided conversation is always arrogant. Grant 
 the other fellow a chance to say his say. 
 
 Silence indicates control. We often read: "He 
 mastered himself and was silent." The trivial 
 gabble! When the mind is in control the machine 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 87 
 
 is geared up tight. The wagging tongue always 
 means loose tension. It is the loose gear that rat- 
 tles. All nature pays homage to self-control. A 
 wretch must sink low before he can be made to 
 own that he has lost it. Life is one struggle to 
 acquire it. It has no better indication than the 
 ability to keep quiet. 
 
 Silence is the great healing power of solitude. 
 In the face of a great crisis we are silent. In a 
 great emotion we are still. Silence can be eloquent. 
 It is always majestic. 
 
 "Silence is the lesson of kings," said Jean du 
 Beauvais at the funeral of Louis XV. And Car- 
 lyle has called silence the element of great things 
 that fashion themselves together to rule. 
 
 Silence is more unimpeachable than speech 
 because it cannot be attacked. Great thoughts are 
 born in silence. It is the mother of truth. It is 
 the servant of reason. It is the best help to him 
 who mistrusts himself. "Let us be silent," says 
 Emerson, "that we may hear the whisper of the 
 gods." 
 
 Wars are waged by speech. Noise and tumult 
 are the signs of war. Silence is the insignia of 
 peace. It is quite as much a mark of strength to 
 know how to hold your tongue as to know how to 
 wisely use it. 
 
88 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 THINK IT OUT 
 
 IT is not by chance that anatomically the brain 
 o'ertops your eyes, ears, nose and mouth but 
 by design, that it may supervise what you are 
 to see, hear, smell and taste. Think it out! 
 
 Not by chance was your brain put above legs 
 and arms but by plan, that it might direct and con- 
 serve their energy. Think it out! 
 
 Your brain — your best counsellor — sits in the 
 "crow's nest" of your craft on purpose to oversee 
 your course. It is equipped with the most precious 
 power nature gave you. Make that brain yield 
 you the fullest value. A clear brain is the best 
 conserver of muscle and energy. Use it. Culti- 
 vate the power to think clearly. 
 
 As a people we evade hard thinking. Shallow 
 surface cleverness is a too common characteristic. 
 Our educational system develops the minds of our 
 children along the lines of memory and absorption. 
 Child and teacher seem equally afraid of reason. 
 Thus as the child grows older he shows less and 
 less inclination to tax his brain with thinking a 
 thing out. Stuffed and crammed with information 
 in early youth he faces life with few, if any, mate- 
 rial powers developed. 
 
 How enthusiastically and how blindly we em- 
 bark on a new idea only to cast it aside when our 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 89 
 
 muscles are tired and it doesn't "work." It may- 
 have had its measure of value, else why our first 
 enthusiasm. Think it out! 
 
 Relax your muscle — cinch up your brain. A 
 bit of adjustment that good thinking will suggest 
 to you, — a bit of cool patience — oh, rarity among 
 Americans, — and you may contribute something 
 of value to the world. 
 
 Success means ability to make the best use of 
 our powers. Success means that the man in the 
 "crow's nest" is awake and on guard. One of the 
 best valued faculties commercially is the power 
 to get efficient work out of men. Everywhere we 
 hear the cry for efficiency. What scientific study 
 we give to the elimination of waste! How we 
 scheme to cut out unnecessary motion in even so 
 primitive a work as brick-laying! Competition is 
 so fierce that competitors bend every effort 
 toward organization. The struggle for individual 
 existence must mean better co-ordination in the 
 human being himself. And education should 
 mean organization for efficiency of a man's native 
 powers. 
 
 The vacant look, the wandering attention, the 
 meaningless erratic motion characteristic of the 
 imbecile or the lunatic, — all mean that the watch 
 has left the "crow's nest." Reason is off duty. 
 
 Think it out! 
 
90 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 GREATNESS 
 
 THOUGH the temple of fame is said to stand 
 upon the grave and its flame to be kindled 
 from the ashes of dead men there lies back of 
 every such temple a life of romance, for fame is 
 the echo of action. 
 
 Fame is the fullest compensation for true and 
 honorable deeds, and only in struggle and conflict 
 can greatness be measured. Any one may be a 
 pilot upon a peaceful sea. 
 
 "A great man," said the Earl of Beaconsfield, 
 "is one who affects the mind of his generation." 
 Mere family never made a great man. Thought 
 and deed, courage and conviction, and not pedi- 
 gree, are the passports to enduring fame. 
 
 Great men are not supernatural; they are the 
 natural, the true men in whom nature has suc- 
 ceeded. They who fall short of greatness are the 
 imperfect. 
 
 The great men are they who both see the right 
 and choose it, — and having chosen pursue it with 
 invincible resolution, resisting the temptations of 
 easier paths. It is they who point out the way and 
 by their example show others. 
 
 Great men are unique only in that they are 
 uncommon and are conspicuous by their contrast 
 to the common. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 91 
 
 Minor minds may at times show greater origi- 
 nality but it is range of vision, foresight and far- 
 sight that lift up the common horde. 
 
 Learn to think not in counties but in contin- 
 ents and think with sincerity, for sincerity is the 
 first attribute of greatness. 
 
 In the panorama of time the great men loom up 
 like snow-capped peaks above a range of hills. 
 Each in its solitude represents a great spiritual 
 force rather than material force. The great 
 prophets and painters, preachers and poets, 
 musicians and patriots all stood for, fought for, 
 lived for and died for ideals. The princes of the 
 market, the money changers, and the accumula- 
 tors of material things, all have been forgotten, 
 while the stories of the great spiritual forces that 
 have molded and shaped the world have remained. 
 They and they alone are the world's priceless 
 heritage. 
 
 Yet all these great potential powers have come 
 to us unheralded and unknown, for there is noth- 
 ing more simple than greatness. The greatest 
 men like the greatest truths are the simplest. The 
 great man is what he is from nature and he rises to 
 his height of fame without reminding us of others. 
 It is only the pretender who calls for contrasts. 
 However far above us the truly great may be they 
 always make us feel that they are our brothers. 
 
92 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 No really great man ever thought himself as 
 great as he really was. 
 
 No man ever became great by Imitation. A 
 great man must give us something new in thought 
 or fact. Service becomes his passion. He be- 
 comes the servant of mankind. Only the little 
 king ever hopes to make mankind servant at his 
 court. 
 
 Great men never lose their childlike heart. 
 They give to the world a great affection and it is 
 this, when they are gone, which the world keeps 
 and holds for them. Because great men possess 
 this passion to serve rather than to be served, to 
 give rather than to get, to do something for the 
 world, we find great acts and great eloquence most 
 commonly going hand in hand. 
 
 The road to greatness is through loss of self 
 in the thought of all. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 93 
 
 JUSTICE 
 
 VIRTUE finds its truest expression in justice. 
 Liberty and equality are empty words unless 
 they rest upon justice which at all times is the 
 true principle for humanity. Separate liberty or 
 equality from justice and neither can stand. The 
 passion of all great prophets throughout all ages 
 has been for justice. 
 
 It Is the one-word definition of the Golden 
 Rule. It was not only the basis of the teachings 
 of Jesus but of all great religious seers and proph- 
 ets. Each In his turn and time and in his own 
 way said the same thing. Confucius put It: 
 "What I do not wish men to do to me, I also wish 
 not to do to them." 
 
 Justice Is virile; It Is never passive or indif- 
 ferent. It Is truth In action. Justice may be 
 violent; It Is always violent to the one who offends 
 it. We may prize success, covet wealth, seek 
 honor, but none of these can satisfy unless they 
 come through justice. 
 
 Justice is the goal of civilization. 
 
 He Is great who for justice's sake can forget 
 friends, kin, self-interest, — all — to fight for or to 
 work for that which Is right for another, a stranger 
 perhaps, or even an enemy. We cannot secure 
 justice for ourselves through denying justice to 
 
94 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 others. It Is not in the order of things, for jus- 
 tice is consistent, impartial and always fair. 
 
 Justice does not delay. Justice is prompt. 
 The court that countenances delay defeats jus- 
 tice. 
 
 Justice is not pity; it is greater than pity. 
 Pity consoles; justice strengthens. It tends to fos- 
 ter in men the strong qualities which make for 
 good citizenship. 
 
 Though justice is impartial it is not blind. 
 Science is governed by its laws. 
 
 Justice is wisdom. Education is its agent; 
 ignorance its enemy. The cultivated mind seeks 
 fairness. Culture rejoices in equity. The unre- 
 fined mind seeks advantage. It is the man who 
 tries to live by his cunning who finds himself in 
 court. 
 
 The nation that loves liberty most sincerely 
 and that fights only for human justice is seldom 
 found in the brutal entanglements of war and then 
 only in a benignant war made holy by the passion 
 for justice. The nation that covets property and 
 men, that seeks to enrich itself by devastating 
 its neighbor, is found most often in the throes 
 of war and then for the shameful and unsatisfy- 
 ing end of boldly defying justice. And as with 
 nations so with men. Such nations come to no 
 good end. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 95 
 
 "Justice," said Daniel Webster, "is the great- 
 est interest of man on earth. It is the ligament 
 which holds civilized beings and civilized nations 
 together." 
 
 Happiness and progress are secured only when 
 justice is honored. 
 
96 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 ^ LIBERTY 
 
 MAN prizes nothing so much as his freedom. 
 Deprive him of it and he will give his last 
 dollar to get it back. 
 
 The cry of every soul from its first conscious 
 moment is for liberty. 
 
 The captured animal paces before the bars 
 of his cage in search of liberty. Freedom is de- 
 pendent upon knowledge. The lion loses his 
 liberty because he lacked the wit to trap the 
 man. 
 
 Ignorant men, like fierce lions, are apt to look 
 upon liberty as license. But he only is free who 
 is protected from injury. 
 
 Liberty never defies law; it establishes and 
 respects law. The fellow who loses his liberty 
 quickest is he who attempts to take more than he 
 is entitled to. The highest liberty is in harmony 
 with the highest laws. 
 
 Real liberty is not reached suddenly; it un- 
 folds slowly. It is never won cheaply; it is diffi- 
 cult to attain. 
 
 The best liberty we know is worth only what 
 the best civilization is worth. 
 
 Liberty is not idleness; it is merely the free 
 use of time. It is the opportunity to choose our 
 labor and to use without restraint our minds. 
 
Saturday Sermo7iettes 97 
 
 Through the just acquisition of money and 
 property, we may buy a physical liberty; we may 
 be free to go where and how we please but we may 
 still be slaves to prejudice, superstition, false idols, 
 and false ideals. 
 
 The ripest liberty comes only through the 
 cultivation and emancipation of the mind. The 
 schoolhouse and the college are the pathfinders 
 of freedom. 
 
 In his Reflections on the French Revolution, 
 Burke declares that liberty without wisdom is the 
 greatest of all possible evils for it is folly, vice 
 and madness without tuition or restraint. 
 
 He who plans to leave wealth to his children 
 does less well by them than he who bequeaths 
 them liberty. And liberty can be insured only 
 through the mind that is made strong enough to 
 be independent of others. 
 
 Liberty is a positive force; it is the moral 
 power of self-government. 
 
 No man can himself be free who does not wish 
 that all men be free and who is not willing to fight for 
 the freedom of all. Liberty respects and safeguards 
 the rights of all. Liberty is love. It is the watch- 
 word of all commonwealths; it is the battle cry of 
 brotherhood. It is the one-word creed of Christian- 
 ity. It is the foundation on which America rests, — 
 the assurance of her greatness and her glory. 
 
98 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 TALK 
 
 WISE men measure their words. The tongue 
 that runs ahead of its wit says little worth 
 recording. The so-called "silver-tongued orator" 
 seldom says anything which is remembered. 
 Brevity in speech is a virtue. The greatest story 
 in history is the story of the Crucifixion, which was 
 told in six hundred words. The model speech in 
 English oratorical literature is Lincoln's Gettys- 
 burg address. Edward Everett Hale's formula 
 for writing applies equally well to conversa- 
 tion: "Have something to say; say it; stop." 
 
 Be sparing of the first person pronoun. How- 
 ever much you may be interested in yourself 
 remember that the world is vastly interested in 
 others. One of the wisest prophets of our Concord 
 colony three score years ago said, "Egotists can- 
 not converse, they talk to themselves only." 
 
 "Talk often but never long" was the advice of 
 Lord Chesterfield to his son, explaining that by 
 so doing if he did not please he at least would 
 not tire his hearers. 
 
 The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table tells 
 us that talking is like playing a harp; it is as 
 much a part of the art to lay the hand on the 
 strings to stop their vibrations as to twang them 
 to bring out their music. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 99 
 
 Talking Is a fine art. It is as difiicult to 
 master as music and like music its fluent har- 
 monies may be spoiled by the infusion of a single 
 harsh note. 
 
 The artist tells the story to the eye. The true 
 talker tells the story to the ear. Much paint 
 applied to canvas does not make a picture. 
 Neither will mere words convey an idea nor estab- 
 lish a conviction. 
 
 He who talks about things he knows is he who 
 reaches the hearing ear. The person who talks 
 with equal vivacity on every subject usually 
 excites but little interest in any. 
 
 The man who sets out to talk for fame never 
 can be pleasing; the man who talks to unburden 
 his mind and who has in his mind something 
 worth unloading is the man who delights you. 
 
 People soon learn to recoil from those who have 
 neither wit to speak well nor judgment to hold 
 their tongue. 
 
 We seldom regret saying too little; we often 
 repent having said too much. 
 
 Long talking begets short hearing. "Blessed 
 is the man," says George Eliot, "who, having 
 nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy 
 evidence of the fact." 
 
 The gossip is never loved. It is the evil 
 tongue that never wants a whet. 
 
100 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 The spendthrift of the tongue reaps no more 
 honor than the spendthrift of the purse. 
 
 The old red schoolhouse axiom "Think twice 
 before you speak" is a good Hfe rule. Reflection 
 should always precede expression. 
 
 The late Senator Elkins of West Virginia had 
 in his unique vocabulary the expression ''cab 
 wit," which he defined as the wit that thought out 
 on the way home what it should have said. 
 
 Intemperance in talk is not only an abomina- 
 tion but often a man's pitfall. 
 
 Plutarch declared that "talkative people, if they 
 wish to be loved, are hated; if they desire pleasure, 
 they bore; when they think they are admired, 
 they are really laughed at; they spend and get 
 no gain from so doing; they injure their friends, 
 benefit their enemies, and ruin themselves." 
 
 The best men are always the men of few words 
 who convey the most pregnant thoughts in sim- 
 plest sentences. A good talker even more than a 
 good orator implies a good audience. 
 
 The small mind indulges in small talk; the miind 
 that is crowded with ideas has no room for gossip. 
 The heart that is filled with love, human sympa- 
 thy and justice, cannot compel its tongue to 
 speak words of hate, jealousy and wrong. 
 
 The tongue is the tattler; it tells your character 
 as surely as the sun tells the course of day. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 101 
 
 ROAD-MAKING 
 
 EVERY man is a road-maker. He builds the 
 road over which he himself is to travel. If he 
 is careless and insincere his road will be poorly 
 made and he will find himself stalled in the soft 
 mud of indifference. If he be sincere and diligent he 
 will make a highway over which he can travel far. 
 
 The ancient Romans built, with much labor, 
 the famous Appian Way. To do this they laid end 
 to end great, heavy, flat stones. 
 
 Many centuries later a Scotchman by the 
 name of McAdam found a better way to build an 
 enduring road. Time shifted the great blocks of 
 the Appian Way; they were not laid upon a strong 
 bed of little stones. McAdam accepted for his 
 road only very little stones — stones that would 
 slip between his thumb and first finger. The little 
 stones could shift, they could settle and as they 
 shifted and settled the "macadam" road became 
 firmer and better. 
 
 The life road-maker who makes surest of his 
 future lays his road bed in daily deeds of good 
 rather than by seeking only to lay down the large 
 blocks of ambitious performance. 
 
 The man who gets most out of life and he who 
 gives most to life is the man who sees the good in 
 little things, — who learns how to use little things, — 
 
102 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 who neglects or despises no detail and who builds 
 his life road constantly and insistently with little 
 deeds well done. 
 
 Measure the deeds of any great man and you 
 will find his achievements have grown out of 
 an experience of doing the small things with 
 patience and painstaking fidelity. 
 
 The man of moral courage does not reach his 
 moral power by one full leap; it is a matter of 
 road-making; he acquires his moral strength step 
 by step. 
 
 The architect who conceives the great cathe- 
 dral or the monumental tower has first learned to 
 use the T-square and the sweep; he has learned 
 the mathematical laws that govern the stress and 
 distribution of weight; he has built his road step 
 by step and over it he has reached the thing of 
 strength and beauty. 
 
 The road that is without a firm foundation is 
 not the road of an enduring civilization. Soft 
 clay carries no commerce. The road of least 
 resistance is the road that retards progress, — that 
 holds back the traveler who would use it. Each 
 day we lay the foundation for the road we are to 
 travel tomorrow. 
 
 Life's prizes are not gifts; they are goals; they 
 must be won; we must build the road over which 
 we are to pass to reach them. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 103 
 
 HEART CULTURE 
 
 MUSIC is the universal language. The truth 
 of this lies in the fact that music is the 
 language of the heart rather than of the intellect. 
 The most valuable culture to civilization is heart 
 culture. It governs, modifies, multiplies and in- 
 terprets all else. 
 
 The most skilled and trained intellect loses its 
 greatest potential possibilities if it be not governed 
 by a sensitive and cultivated heart. 
 
 Believe in the heart; listen to its pleadings and 
 appeals; be not afraid to give the sympathy which 
 it dictates or to modify your judgments by its 
 sentiments. 
 
 However admirable is a brilliant and logical 
 mind, however enviable is the skilled or art- 
 touched hand, something still more good and 
 beautiful lies within the heart that has been 
 trained to be true and generous. 
 
 There is no wealth in the world that is com- 
 parable with the wealth of affection and esteem. 
 To be loved by many is the world's greatest 
 reward for doing good. 
 
 He is loved most who loves most. 
 
 The thing to be desired is more heart, — 
 more heart in our work, more heart in our play, 
 more heart in all our intercourses with the world 
 
104 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 around us. There never can be too much heart 
 — the grievances and distress of this world are 
 the products of our lack of it. The whole world 
 was wrecked by a nation that dedicated its power 
 to a hymn of hate. 
 
 Emerson u,^ed to say that the best thing a boy 
 got out of college was a room and a fire-place to 
 himself. Literally, that probably applied to the 
 Harvard of his day; figuratively, even with our 
 congested and steam-fitted dormitories, it applies 
 today. "The still small voice within" is a good 
 teacher. 
 
 Man is made useful through what he can give 
 rather than through what he can get. Men are 
 measured by what they can do and by the means 
 they have of expressing themselves. He who is 
 unable to express himself in the terms of the heart 
 falls short of the world's most coveted goal. 
 
 The man who is loved by children, whatever 
 his sins of commercial greed may be, is a thousand 
 times more favored in the eyes of the Lord, Who 
 said, "Come unto Me," than is his caustic critic 
 of pretended virtues whose shallow character is 
 revealed by the lack of love from little ones. 
 
 The tendency of this age, with its commer- 
 cialized "get" instinct, is to harden rather than 
 to mellow our hearts. We live in a commercial 
 world and he loses life itself who so far yields 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 105 
 
 to the purely money-making tendency of the 
 times as to wholly forget the wealth that tender- 
 ness tenders. 
 
 Cultivate the muse of music, the thoughts of 
 universal things. Cherish the all-inclusive instincts. 
 
 The need of these days is not greater oppor- 
 tunities for commerce and trade so much as a 
 larger realization of the possibilities latent in the 
 fellowship of mankind. 
 
 Men have lived with keener and more culti- 
 vated minds than Lincoln, but Lincoln lives in 
 the minds of men as the master man because his 
 mind was guided by a cultivated heart. 
 
106 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 GO AHEAD 
 
 THE bud unfolds into the flower. The seed, 
 laid in the clod, finds its way to the light. 
 The short green wheat blade of spring becomes the 
 tall golden stem of summer, crowned by many 
 grains. Truth is never idle. Truth is growth; it 
 is progress. 
 
 You cannot serve truth and repose. You must 
 contribute something to the world or you are as 
 the dead seed laid away. That which is yours to 
 do cannot be done for you. Each man is his own 
 maker. The only nobility that the world perma- 
 nently recognizes is that which grows out of use- 
 fulness. 
 
 The purple pride of the Caesars lurks in the 
 veins of fruit venders today. Do not trust either 
 your happiness or your place in history to the 
 deeds of your fathers. That sturdy band of Pil- 
 grims who would not relinquish their convictions 
 would find but little content in your pride in the 
 Mayflower if they realized that you, who boast of 
 their heritage, made no denials and were unwilling 
 to endure hardships for the cause of truth and 
 right. 
 
 As sons and daughters of the American Revolu- 
 tion we too often boast of our forefathers' frank 
 and fearless love of liberty while we cunningly 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 107 
 
 evade the emancipations we might proclaim were 
 we not ourselves slaves of greed. 
 
 We who boast of fathers who fought to make 
 men free should recount what we ourselves have 
 given or are willing to give in time, labor or money 
 for the freedom of those who are hopelessly 
 chained down. Do we seek truth, do we love free- 
 dom so long as we allow men, under our laws, to 
 coin money out of the labor of little children or 
 to abuse women for profit? Greed is a poor gun 
 with which to hunt happiness. 
 
 Be no parasite. Profess no patriotism that you 
 have not earned. When chided that he had no 
 ancestors Napoleon replied, "I am an ancestor." 
 
 It is the first edition of a great book and not the 
 last that brings the big price. Be the pattern not 
 the emulation. 
 
 "Through the corridors of time," said Victor 
 Hugo, ''there ever echoes the sound of the patent 
 boot descending and the wooden shoe ascending. " 
 Neither disdain the plowmen from whom you 
 come nor rest upon the triumphs your ancestors 
 won. Be yourself, in and by your own right a 
 MAN. 
 
 The thriving family tree never grows upon dead 
 roots. The more you talk about the family from 
 which you came the more will people talk about 
 you; the more will they suspect you need the prop. 
 
108 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 Don't look back; look ahead. 
 
 Don't let them find you coming down the 
 steps — let them find you going up. Be not con- 
 tent with either reflection or repose. Seek the 
 truth — and the truth is only found by GOING 
 AHEAD. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 109 
 
 THE FORCES OF SELFISHNESS 
 
 NOT long before England's greatest editor, 
 William T. Stead, set sail on the ill-fated 
 Titanic he was asked this question: "What will 
 be the great war of the twentieth century?" To 
 which he promptly replied: "The war against 
 poverty." 
 
 Kings will not direct this war; nor will organ- 
 ized military forces champion its cause. It will 
 come through the individual's protest against the 
 oppression of organized power; it will come 
 through the righteous resentment of sensible 
 selfishness. 
 
 When the individual shall assert himself, misery 
 and degradation will cease to be. Poverty is a 
 power with which crowns cannot cope. 
 
 The French Revolution was a battle between 
 the forces of selfishness and selfishness, and the 
 righteously selfish won. 
 
 When men once feel their own power they 
 become masters of their own circumstances. To 
 be free is the commonest of self instincts. The 
 doctrine of the survival of the fittest is the doc- 
 trine of the survival of the selfish. 
 
 Our captains of industry, actuated by the power 
 of selfishness, become the masters of commerce 
 and therefore the masters of men. The love of 
 
110 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 liberty defies the rule of the master, for liberty 
 is the sentiment of selfishness. Thus the selfish 
 masters of industry find themselves opposed by an 
 individual selfishness, out of which clash must 
 grow a fairer distribution of the spoils of the 
 world, thus lessening poverty and distress. 
 
 Selfishness insists upon rights. But that sel- 
 fishness which, in the quest of rights, forgets 
 DUTY soon faces defeat. 
 
 In the new order of things rights must regulate 
 industry and trade, but DUTY must perform 
 its work and he who, demanding rights, declines 
 to do his DUTY, defeats his own ends. 
 
 Government is but a system of organized sel- 
 fishness. When it falls into the hands of a few, it 
 becomes oppressive. When it falls into the hands 
 of many, it becomes beneficent. Hence the tri- 
 umph of democracy. 
 
 Patriotism is selfishness glorified. Our fore- 
 fathers, upon many fields of battle, employed 
 both the bullet and the bayonet to insure their 
 rights. 
 
 But selfishness is already squelching war. Men 
 do not wish to receive injury; therefore, they can 
 not give injury. The ballot takes the place of the 
 bayonet and men are learning that they cannot 
 vote an injury to another without risking an 
 injury in return. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 111 
 
 The laws of self protection are the laws of altru- 
 ism. The rights of men can be granted only- 
 through obedience to the Golden Rule. Thus 
 does the selfish insistence of all usher in the dawn 
 of a better day. 
 
112 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 GUIDE RIGHT 
 
 VICTOR HUGO once made one of his char- 
 acters In fiction ask of another, ''What is the 
 greatest thing in the world?" to which the other 
 replied, "Man's capacity and desire to work with 
 man." 
 
 The lonesome man in the world's procession is 
 he who is out of step, who has never learned how 
 to take his place in the great parade, who has not 
 learned the marching game. 
 
 The saddest discouragements are always those 
 that grow out of involuntary loneliness. A college 
 student who had shown great proficiency in Greek 
 explained his position behind a Boston hotel cigar 
 counter by saying, "This is the way the world uses 
 its scholars." The poor fellow's analysis was all 
 wrong. With better truth he might have said, " This 
 is the only way this scholar is able to use the world. " 
 
 The mind that can absorb without contributing 
 is as much out of step as the mechanic who swings 
 his hammer to break rather than to build. 
 
 Man's attainments are measured by his contri- 
 bution to the welfare of the world. 
 
 No painter reaches triumph in his art until he 
 creates a picture that others, too, appreciate. 
 
 No writer is an author until he creates a book 
 that others find profit in reading. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 113 
 
 No thinker is a philosopher until he establishes 
 a philosophy that others can use. 
 
 All work must be purposeful. It must be direct- 
 ed toward the needs of society or it is energy 
 wasted as powder exploded in air. 
 
 A clockmaker may with infinite skill fit and 
 adjust his miniature mill wheels and highly refined 
 steel springs, but unless they be so assembled as 
 to tell with accuracy the story of the established 
 laws of time, his work is wasted. 
 
 A mob is a mass of men unorganized without a 
 defined purpose, with no right guide and without 
 knowing how to guide right. 
 
 A regiment is a mass of men organized with 
 leadership, every man trained to guide right and 
 to hold his purposeful place in a purposeful plan. 
 
 A battalion of infantry is strong, not because it 
 is a CROWD of men but because it is a BODY of 
 men. Each soldier has learned the power of pur- 
 poseful effort, has learned to "guide right," to 
 march shoulder to shoulder, each contributing 
 something to the well-organized and well-defined 
 whole. 
 
 So always with the man who succeeds, whether 
 he be mechanic or artisan, soldier or scholar. He 
 must learn to march with men, be he private in 
 the ranks, or the captain who orders the day. 
 
114 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 THE SELF MADE MAN 
 
 EARLY in his titled life of affluence Count 
 Tolstoi declared that to comprehend the 
 dignity and honor of labor one must frequently 
 do a real, hard, whole day's manual work. And 
 this work must be of a kind that will help others 
 more than oneself. Tolstoi may not have found 
 the only way to acquire the comprehensive sym- 
 pathy of service and human helpfulness, but his 
 life clearly and wonderfully demonstrated that 
 through this practice he found an open avenue to 
 the hearts of men who toil. 
 
 Tolstoi set out to understand society. This he 
 could not do through knowing the prince and 
 being ignorant of the peasant, any more than 
 could the peasant have an understanding of the 
 intricacies of the social fabric by knowing his 
 own conditions without knowing the life of the 
 prince. 
 
 Efiiciency in industry as in all things grows out 
 of knowledge. Knowledge is understanding. Un- 
 derstanding is experience. 
 
 "From log cabin to success" is the biograph- 
 ical formula of most great Americans, not be- 
 cause the boy born of affluence has less wit or 
 brain than the boy of log-cabin birth, but be- 
 cause the boy that is not confronted with 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 115 
 
 necessity too seldom has the perspective that 
 Tolstoi had when, to know his own side of life, 
 he realized that he must also know the other side 
 of life. The log-cabin boy, born in the adver- 
 sities, aspires; necessity drives him, and the 
 driving advances him through the school of ex- 
 perience. 
 
 The president of a great electrical machine 
 company tells the story of how, when his man- 
 ufacturing company was in its infancy, he sought 
 a college trained electrician to develop as a 
 sales manager. Through a "pull" he was preju- 
 diced in favor of the highly educated son of 
 a friend. This boy, a graduate of one of our 
 greatest technical schools, was already earning 
 a good salary as a telephone manager. He was 
 told that the new position would pay him but 
 a dollar a day; that he must put on his 
 jeans and labor as a workman in the shops for 
 a year. The opportunity was disdainfully de- 
 clined. 
 
 Another technically educated young man from 
 an even wealthier home, possessing a Tolstoian 
 vision, hastened to apply for the job. It was 
 given to him; he went into the shop and began 
 in the unskilled labor class. Today he is the 
 chairman of the board of directors of that great 
 company and with all his wealth a leader of labor, 
 
116 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 loved and honored by laboring men because he too 
 KNOWS toil. 
 
 The self-made man may come out of wealth or 
 poverty. It is the sympathetic understanding of 
 the other fellow, the willingness to work with and 
 for men, that makes MEN. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 117 
 
 DUTY 
 
 THIS is a positive world. Upon every living 
 creature is imposed an obligation. Duty 
 demands that this obligation be met. He who fails 
 to meet it is a drone. The world discards its drones. 
 Do not let yourself be cast into the discard. 
 
 Duty is a stem taskmaster. It commands us 
 to be useful, not according to our desires, but 
 according to our powers. 
 
 Duty will tolerate neither slight nor neglect. 
 If you fail to meet your interest you pay com- 
 pound interest. So with duty, the more you shirk 
 it the higher it piles up before you. 
 
 If you break the thread in the loom by being 
 false to your duty today you may confront the 
 flaw tomorrow when you will have forgotten its 
 cause and are helpless to mend it. 
 
 Duty is the condition of existence; it is the 
 passport to liberty. It is the foundation to human 
 rights. Duty and liberty must stand or fall 
 together. 
 
 Duties seldom come through choice. They 
 are the lot of destiny. The reward for doing one 
 duty is the power to fulfill another. 
 
 The arm that swings the hammer grows strong. 
 The conscience that, soldier-like, pursues duty 
 daily develops character. 
 
118 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 Duty is the acid test of manhood. It marks 
 heroes and shows the shams of pretenders. 
 
 Duty is not spasmodic, — it does not confront 
 us occasionally; it is constant. Some duty meets 
 each of us face to face every day. We cannot 
 meet it by long jumps. We must follow it step 
 by step. It will permit no one to pile weight upon 
 weakness. 
 
 Duty measures time cautiously. With every 
 duty we are given the time in which to do it. But 
 we are not given time to spare. Neglect will for- 
 feit fylfillment. Do your duty now. Take no 
 chance. Duty delayed spells failure. 
 
 Pleasure often appears to be in conflict with 
 duty because in attempting to discharge our duty 
 we do only what we are strictly obliged to do, and 
 we feel we are seldom praised for it. Yet the 
 pleasure a man of honor enjoys in the conscious- 
 ness of having performed his duty is a reward he 
 pays himself for all his pains. 
 
 The first, the last, and the greatest pleasure 
 in life is the sense of having discharged our duty. 
 
 The sense of duty pursues us ever. It justi- 
 fies life. The doing it is its own full, rich reward. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 119 
 
 GENIUS 
 
 THOUGH it IS a common practice to covet 
 genius or gold, just waiting will bring neither. 
 It is foolish to assume that you possess a measure 
 of genius and that all you have to do is to wait for 
 inspiration. 
 
 Inspiration goes hunting for no one. If you 
 want it you yourself must go and get it. 
 
 Genius is always impatient. It is restless, 
 eager. Latent genius is but a presumption. Inac- 
 tion produces nothing. Though patience may be 
 employed, genius is always a matter of energy, 
 expression in action, just as an oak that flourishes 
 for a thousand years springs not into full life like 
 a reed, so does many a genius develop slowly, 
 laboriously but surely. 
 
 The men of greatest genius have invariably been 
 amongst the most plodding, hard working, and 
 intent men. Their chief contrast with other men 
 has been their capacity to labor harder and more 
 eifectively. 
 
 To do, through labor, that which seems to be 
 impossible to labor is the mark of genius. 
 
 Genius is not haughty. It does not look with 
 disdain upon the ** vulgar masses." On the con- 
 trary it is lonely without the surrounding presence 
 of a people to inspire it. 
 
120 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 Genius is life intensified. It makes a nature 
 many sided, whole, while most men remain 
 partial or fragmentary. 
 
 There are no astonishing ways of doing as- 
 tonishing things. All things are done with the 
 everyday tools we have about us. Through per- 
 severance and devotion to a purpose comes 
 that refinement of our faculties which we call 
 genius. 
 
 Men of genius are not possessed of unnatural 
 gifts. Their own cultivated fineness renders them 
 more alive than the ordinary men to the super- 
 natural. Yet the greatest geniuses have at- 
 tributed their crowning achievements to God as 
 if conscious of being possessed of a spark of His 
 divinity. 
 
 This but emphasizes the false egotism of those 
 who pose as possessors of genius and have it not. 
 
 Eccentricity is not a sign of genius. Genius is 
 natural, always plain. Only the pretender affects 
 the pose. He must; it is all he has. Genius does 
 not. It reveals itself by doing things better. 
 
 Genius is as rich as it is generous, as noble as 
 its ideal. If it hoards it impoverishes itself. If 
 it seeks to better the world it lifts itself into a 
 glory that money cannot buy. 
 
 The monuments to genius endure as the service 
 of genius is generous. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 121 
 
 As a great city is to a state so does genius stand 
 out above the plane of men as a tower of concen- 
 trated power. For genius is labor plus patience, 
 plus perseverance, plus power and plus AN 
 IDEAL. 
 
122 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 VISION 
 
 GREAT men think in continents, not in 
 counties. It is the men with vision who 
 have made the big marches in the world's progress. 
 
 King Ferdinand of Spain could find many men 
 with brains enough to be prime minister; but 
 there was only one man in his kingdom who could 
 find a world. 
 
 The great dreams are the day dreams. All 
 great achievements are self-promised to him who 
 achieves them. 
 
 Emerson's "hitch your wagon to a star" 
 was as sage advice as Greeley's "Go west, young 
 man." Both urged a larger horizon, a bigger 
 vision. Don't be afraid to dare. Attack the un- 
 attainable. Attempt to make possible the impossi- 
 bilities and you will come nearer to your star 
 than you ever dreamed you could. 
 
 Learn to look at the world through a telescope, 
 not through a microscope. It is more important 
 that you should see the unit than that you should 
 know the cell. It is better to own the integer than 
 the fraction. 
 
 The only value of knowing the little things in 
 life is that we may better see and dream the big 
 things. We learn the alphabet not because we 
 want to know "a" from "b," but because we want 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 123 
 
 to provide ourselves with the ideas which grouped 
 letters may convey to us. 
 
 Imagination is the eye of the soul. Men are 
 great in proportion to the measure of their imagina- 
 tion and in proportion to the knowledge which 
 they possess to support and govern it. 
 
 Without education the imagination is either 
 crippled or uncontrolled. The picture in the tele- 
 scope means most to the mind that has mastered 
 the picture in the microscope. That mind sees the 
 bond between the infinitesimal and the infinite. 
 
 Many a biologist can hitch polysyllabic terms 
 to infinitesimal things who cannot grasp the 
 simple truths of great things. 
 
 The geologist and the astronomer, though know- 
 ing the molecule, must think in big terms; they 
 toy with glaciers, oceans, mountains, worlds. 
 
 You cannot know the desert by merely micro- 
 scopically observing the crystal grain of sand. 
 Neither a drop of water nor yet a single wave can 
 tell the story of the ocean's wonder. Only the 
 endless line of a calm sea's horizon can convey 
 the sense of the sea's vastness. 
 
 The imagination of the trained mind is the 
 secret of civilization. It is the most active, the 
 least susceptible to fatigue of all the faculties 
 of man. But he who has imagination without 
 learning has wings on which to fly but no feet 
 
124 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 on which to stand. His dreams become to him as 
 the fairy tales to the poor. 
 
 To dream great dreams and make those dreams 
 REAL is the creative faculty that lifts great men 
 above their fellows as snow capped peaks raise 
 their rugged shoulders above the rolling ranges 
 about them. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 125 
 
 PERSEVERANCE 
 
 WEALTH inherited is never valued like wealth 
 earned. Victory is great as the battle is hard. 
 There is no short road to real triumph. That which is 
 gained easily is lost easily. " Easy comes, easy goes. " 
 
 The plant that grows fast withers rapidly. The 
 tree that grows slowly endures. 
 
 Steadfast application will do more than the 
 quick, hard blow of impatience. Dropping water 
 will cut its way through granite. 
 
 Mountains were not made in moments; they 
 are the work of ages. 
 
 Great deeds are done not by strength but by 
 persistence. 
 
 Want a thing hard enough, work for it long 
 enough and you are pretty sure to get it. 
 
 A single purpose is the first essential to success. 
 Stick to it. Tenacity is the primary element of 
 greatness. 
 
 It is wisdom to build castles in the air; but it is 
 folly to stop there. Go at your foundation; pile 
 stone upon stone until you reach your castle. 
 Then it is yours. 
 
 "Stay with it" is the slogan that makes the 
 cowboy master of the bucking broncho. 
 
 "Don't give up the ship," was the command 
 to his men that brought Perry victory. 
 
126 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 Perpetual pushing puts difficulties out of coun- 
 tenance and makes seeming impossibilities give 
 way. 
 
 The weak wait for the opportunity to strike 
 while the iron is hot. The strong make opportunity 
 by striking the iron until it is hot. 
 
 Perseverance rather than brilliancy is the best 
 in a long race. 
 
 The tortoise knows he has to do his utmost 
 all the time to even hope to cope with the hare. 
 The hare knowing his better speed often relies 
 upon sprints and delays too long. 
 
 Over-confidence foreshadows neglect. Don't 
 go to sleep at the switch. It isn't worth the risk. 
 
 The pick and spade persistently applied at a 
 fixed place may penetrate a mountain. 
 
 The oceans have been wedded through the 
 Suez and Panama canals by just plain digging. 
 
 He who attains eminence spends his energies 
 in one pursuit. 
 
 There is no creature so humble but who armed 
 with determination may not gain his point. 
 
 By gnawing through a dyke even a rat may 
 drown a nation. 
 
 No soldier was ever decorated with shoulder 
 straps for marking time. 
 
 Brand the word "forward" on your brain. 
 Always obey it. Go ahead and keep going. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 127 
 
 Don't worry about what the other fellow can do. 
 He may be better than you, but you stick to your 
 job. You may be the tortoise that wins the race. 
 For, — "He that shall endure unto the end the 
 same shall be saved." 
 
128 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 KNOWLEDGE 
 
 EDUCATION, like gold, is valued by every- 
 body. There is no one without it who does 
 not wish he possessed it. There is no one who 
 possesses it that does not wish he had more of it. 
 
 Those who are best educated are ignorant of 
 many subjects. No one can know everything. You 
 may speak ten languages and be unable to tell 
 what the weather will be tomorrow. 
 
 You may know the laws of navigation but unless 
 you can use these laws to pilot your ship clear of the 
 icebergs, that knowledge will be of little worth. 
 
 Abstract knowledge is of little value. Pure 
 culture is not an achievement of which to boast. 
 It is the applied knowledge that is worth while. 
 Learn that you may achieve. Acquire wisdom 
 that you may serve. 
 
 Knowledge put to use is power. 
 
 It is applied knowledge that lifts one man above 
 another. 
 
 Genius is the capacity to use knowledge, to 
 weave it into a fabric or mould it into a structure, 
 to give it order and beauty. 
 
 There is no culture that is antagonistic to the 
 knowledge to which you hitch your reputation. 
 The wise man will know as much as he can about 
 as many things as he can. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 129 
 
 The more knowledge a man has the better 
 will he do his work and the more surely will he 
 understand his limitations and guard against them. 
 
 No knowledge is harmful; all knowledge is 
 helpful. And to be able to know that you do not 
 know is in itself knowledge. 
 
 The "know-it-all" is distrusted by all. The 
 world respects the intelligence of the man who 
 frankly admits his ignorance. 
 
 The most helpful knowledge is that of know- 
 ing where we can go to learn, and from whom we 
 can learn. 
 
 Knowledge always demands a companion vir- 
 tue before it becomes effective. You must have 
 purpose if you would apply it. You must put it 
 to an honest use if you would have it serve you. 
 
 Knowledge without integrity is dangerous. 
 
 Integrity without knowledge is weak. 
 
 An ancient adage tells us that whosoever ac- 
 quires knowledge and does not practise it, re- 
 sembles him who ploughed but did not sow. 
 
 To possess knowledge and lack purpose is to 
 furnish your house and not occupy it. 
 
 The purpose of education is to improve the tools 
 with which you carve out your life work and destiny. 
 
 Knowledge is the only wealth you cannot lose; it 
 is the only jewel that will not dim. Like the sun 
 it lights our pathway and lures us to noble deeds. 
 
130 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 ENVY 
 
 INFERIORITY is the root of all envy. The 
 strong covet the respect of others, not their 
 envy. For envy is the rebellion of the incompe- 
 tent. It is the door plate of ignorance. 
 
 Once envy is permitted to take root it crowds 
 out ambition as a weed kills a cultured plant. 
 
 Envy benumbs and stupifies determination. 
 It is a confession of despair. It produces nothing. 
 It yields no return. To submit to it is to bankrupt 
 endeavor. 
 
 Hatred has the virtue of force. You can bat- 
 tle with resistance. But envy lays down all arms. 
 Irreconcilable, it cannot even be offended into 
 action. 
 
 They who are unwilling to hear good tidings 
 of a neighbor and can find happiness only in 
 seeing others depressed to a level with them- 
 selves are the most hopelessly lost to the work 
 of the world. Their envy is a passion so full 
 of cowardice that even they have not the confi- 
 dence to openly own it. The weakest are reluc- 
 tant to pose as foes of character. Envy is a secret 
 vice. 
 
 Because it is passive, because it dare not strike, 
 the hate which the strong bear with greatest pa- 
 tience is the hate of envy. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 131 
 
 No voice is more ill-natured than envy. Its 
 component parts are meanness and malice. It 
 wishes the force of goodness to be lost and the 
 measure of happiness to be abated. It laments 
 prosperity, it sickens at the sight of health. 
 
 Upon all occasions that ought to give him 
 pleasure the envious man wilfully puts himself in 
 pain. He converts what should be life's relish 
 into secret anguish. Those things which give the 
 highest satisfaction to others give him the quickest 
 pangs. To him all the perfections of fellow crea- 
 tures are odious. Youth, beauty, valor, integrity 
 and wisdom are provocations for his displeasures. 
 
 To be offended with excellence, to hate a man 
 because the world approves is but the faint praise 
 of a wretched soul. 
 
 So false to all good is envy that no man can 
 despise it more than he who envies most. As a 
 slave to a drug he would rise above it if he could, 
 and envies no one so much as he who can. 
 
 Envy hurts only the possessor. Like a scor- 
 pion confined within a circle of fire it stings itself 
 to death. 
 
 As a moth gnaws a garment, so with slow sure- 
 ness does envy consume a man. 
 
 The truest evidence of character is to be with- 
 out a touch of envy. 
 
132 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 BE BUSY 
 
 YOU cannot test your muscle sitting still. You 
 cannot find out what your brain can do by 
 going to sleep. Repose is not a prodder to progress. 
 Its proper place is after work, not before work. Work 
 is for the living; rest for the dead. Be a live one. 
 
 It has often been said "Thou shalt work" 
 should be one of the commandments of every 
 religion. 
 
 Work is the noble yardstick by which we de- 
 termine the worth of all things. It is the climax 
 of God's gifts to man. It is a blessing not a curse. 
 Deprive a man of the right to work and you have 
 imposed the superlative punishment because man 
 knows no joy or repose that is not found along 
 the pathway of work. 
 
 The man who never does anything never knows 
 anything. The man who never works never 
 gets anything. He may be given things but he 
 can only again give. He knows no building game. 
 
 The traveled rail and the driving piston rod 
 are polished by use. The idle piece of steel is red 
 with rust. Better to wear out than to rust out. 
 
 History is the story of work, the record of 
 achievements. In its index you cannot find the 
 names of idlers. Contribute something to the 
 history of something. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 133 
 
 To know work as a friend is the hallmark of 
 wisdom. It is by journeying through the shad- 
 ows of life that we learn the solace of daily 
 tasks. 
 
 The tenderness that denies effort is cruelty. 
 It makes characterless that which was endowed 
 with strength. 
 
 Work is expression. If you can't express 
 yourself one way try another, — but try. If you 
 can't build a cathedral, dig a ditch. But do some- 
 thing. 
 
 Only workers win the world's respect. God 
 does not hold us responsible for results; only for 
 faithfulness. 
 
 Work was made for man, not man for work. 
 He who fails at his task permits work to be his 
 master. Success comes to him who is master of 
 his work. 
 
 Work is so respectable that there is no one no 
 matter how rich or lazy who does not at least pre- 
 tend to work at something and who does not want 
 to be known as a worker. 
 
 Work is the greatest educator. Tackle a job 
 that is a little above you; grow to it and you en- 
 gage in work. Tackle a job that is below you and 
 you engage in drudgery. Put yout heart into 
 work and your labor becomes the light of life. 
 
 Work is the highway to human welfare. 
 
134 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 CHRISTMAS IS COMING 
 
 YES, Christmas is coming, sometime. It is 
 coming when Christmas is a life and not a 
 day; when it is an abiding spirit and not a one day 
 in the year manifestation; when it is conduct and 
 not a seeming; when it is a habit and not an exer- 
 tion; when it is something within us and not 
 without. 
 
 Christmas is coming when at all times we love 
 to give more than we love to get; when we love 
 to serve at least as much as we love to be 
 served. 
 
 Christmas is coming when not only some homes 
 but all homes are happy; when the spirit of good 
 cheer binds all homes in its wonderful, warm and 
 inclusive radiance and good homes are no longer 
 bound within themselves. 
 
 Christmas is coming when all children can play; 
 when all homes are sunny and warm; when all 
 tables are spread with bounty; when all stockings 
 are full. 
 
 Christmas is coming when our associated chari- 
 ties will no longer have to dispense dolls to the 
 little daughters of drunken fathers; when men are 
 not allowed to grow rich by robbing children and 
 mothers by demoralizing weak fathers and hus- 
 bands. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 135 
 
 Christmas is coming when men are brave enough 
 and true enough to help their brothers stand up 
 soldier-like and fight the sordid powers that seek 
 their selfish pots of gold by bringing men to 
 shame and women and children to suffering and 
 want. 
 
 Christmas is coming when we allow no one to 
 capitalize human weaknesses, to beggar the indi- 
 vidual and debauch public morals. 
 
 Christmas is coming when every laborer can 
 look forward to an old age without fear; when 
 widowed mothers do not have to live in dread lest 
 some "benevolent" asylum will rob her of her 
 children. 
 
 Christmas is coming when judges look for jus- 
 tice and not for loopholes and petty technical 
 errors in the law. 
 
 Christmas is coming when men seek not to take 
 unfair advantage one of another but dwell in 
 harmony, learning to love one another as He 
 urges us to do; when men no longer suffer com- 
 mercialized gambling places; when men no longer, 
 with sunken eyes and fevered brain, clutch at 
 each other's throats for gold; when stony faces 
 no longer sneer at breaking hearts; when men are 
 no longer set adrift on the waters of misery by 
 fickle fortune; when their wailing voices are no 
 longer lost in the rumbling roar of greed. 
 
136 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 Christmas is coming when frail human moths 
 are no longer lured to flutter about false lights and 
 drop at last burned and bruised, on the cold gray- 
 stones of dissipation. 
 
 Christmas is coming when women no longer let 
 themselves drift easily down the river of foolish 
 fashion which has its end in the sea of unrest and 
 where the false god of envy waits. 
 
 Christmas is coming when we grow tolerant; 
 when our wasting jealousies are woven into love 
 and helpfulness. 
 
 Christmas is coming when democracy is within 
 rather than without our churches; when we follow 
 the Master and not some sectarian interpreter 
 of the Master; when all our churches grow strong 
 through simple sincerity and as He would have us, 
 become one in His name. 
 
 When every man is at his best every day in the 
 year and not just one day in the year, when we 
 LIVE as Christ taught us to live, then will Christ- 
 mas come. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 137 
 
 THE STAR OF CHRISTMAS 
 
 HOLY legend tells us that in the quiet of a 
 night many, many years ago, a wonderful 
 star was seen above the land of Judea. Wise men 
 wondered, and following its direction were led to a 
 manger in Bethlehem. There were the marvelous 
 mother and Babe. The wise men who followed this 
 brilliant star were looking for the great prophet. 
 
 Then as now men were impatient for that 
 revolution which would reform the world, making 
 it a better and a happier place in which to live. 
 They sought the leader. 
 
 That star which brought those men of the East 
 so long, long ago to the most humble cradle of the 
 Babe who was to be the perfect ruler of men, — 
 the leader, wise, gentle and just, — has become the 
 insignia which today, so many years after, we 
 place at the apex of our Christmas trees in thought 
 of the holy night so long ago. 
 
 For it was on that night that the wonderful 
 thing took place, — the coming of Him who was to 
 establish the spirit of peace in a warring world. 
 
 All through these long and many years He 
 has been the chief inspiration in man's forward 
 march. They who have found Him and have lost 
 Him seek Him again, for they find His life lesson. 
 His encouragement and His consolation fair. 
 
138 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 Under a thousand names, under a thousand 
 interpretations of His teachings, under as many 
 creeds, and ten times as many articles of faith 
 and confession, we have childishly quarreled in 
 His name. 
 
 But the wonder which rested under the star 
 that hung over the land of Judea is more potent 
 and tenderly sure today than ever before. 
 
 We are beginning to believe in Him more than 
 in His disciples, to follow Him more than His 
 interpreters, to practise His spirit of peace, love 
 and brotherhood rather than to cleave a line of 
 bitterness between those who in His name have 
 ventured to impose upon the world creeds that 
 mark the differences rather than the harmony of 
 those whom He loved, and lived to teach. 
 
 Christmas is the day of days. Throughout the 
 year we lend our thoughts and talents to strife 
 and tumult, to the endless battle for advantage 
 and gain. 
 
 As tired children we come back at Christmas 
 time to thoughts of Him, to the spirit of peace 
 on earth, good will among men, to the big 
 brotherhood He tried so hard to make us see. 
 At Christmas time we let the Star of Bethlehem 
 shine upon us and then, — in His name, — we 
 practise giving to others rather than getting from 
 others. 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 139 
 
 This hallowed day of open hospitality is short. 
 Too short. Our lives so crammed with eager 
 strife leave but little room. It is a short day we 
 give to Him but it is our merriest. Our memory 
 of it and our anticipation of it sweetens the live- 
 long year. 
 
140 Pathfinders and Other 
 
 RESOLUTIONS 
 
 MIRABEAU, the great French orator, de- 
 scribed the impossible as "that blockhead of 
 a word." Carlyle said "it is not a lucky word" 
 and declared that no good comes to those who have 
 it often in their mouths. The boy who always 
 would do something if, — is the boy who never 
 does anything. Determination is the full equip- 
 ment for all gigantic tasks, 
 
 "Pilgrim's Progress," Raleigh's "History of 
 the World," "Robinson Crusoe" and Luther's 
 "Translation of the Bible" were not written on 
 mahogany tables before a marble manteled study 
 fire. These and many more of the world's 
 greatest books were written in prison cells. 
 Milton and Homer were blind when they pro- 
 duced the greatest epics ever penned. And 
 Wellington, when some one spoke to him of the 
 word "impossible" exclaimed: "Is anything im- 
 possible.^ Read the newspapers." 
 
 "Impossible" is the excuse of the negatively 
 good. Positive goodness is the only good that 
 counts, — the only good that helps men and pilots 
 the progress of the world. 
 
 Throw a man overboard into the sea and he 
 admits no impossibility. Life is too precious to 
 surrender without a struggle. He will battle for 
 
Saturday Sermonettes 141 
 
 life against hope long after the ship from which 
 he fell has disappeared beyond the horizon line. 
 
 "Impossible" is the pet apology of the lazy. 
 DO, — that is resolution. All else is submission. 
 And submission is stagnation. Don't rust. 
 The wise and the active conquer difficulties by 
 daring to attempt them. 
 
 In the Cycle of the Calender we come again to 
 Resolution Day, — to the day of swearing off, — 
 to reckoning day. Make no jest of it. It is the 
 annual accounting day. Take stock of yourself. 
 Invoice your capacities. Find out your short- 
 comings and resolve to supply them. Make 
 ready to make good. Cut out the thought of 
 impossibility. Don't swear off, — SWEAR ON. 
 Resolve to establish good habits, take on big 
 purposes and, as if by magic, the habits that hob- 
 ble our careers will vanish, for there cannot be room 
 for both good and bad. 
 
 Make your New Year's resolutions positive. 
 Make them purposeful. And then make them 
 hold. Remember that remorse is a counterfeit 
 virtue. Regrets never atone. The merchant who 
 teaches his boy his first mercantile lie degrades 
 a man, — the boy passes out of his sight and 
 somewhere in this great multitudinous mass of 
 humanity that boy is duplicating and extending 
 that sin. 
 
142 Saturday Sermonettes 
 
 The man who wronged a woman years ago 
 cannot through a resolution to turn a new leaf 
 recall that woman from the shadow. He cannot 
 blot out the consequences. 
 
 Remorse cannot recall to the cartridge the bullet 
 that the unreckoning hand sped forth. The 
 thoughtless path is the way of least resistance 
 but it leads to the rockiest road at the close. Be 
 not afraid of the impossible. Go to it. Let your 
 resolve be DO rather than donH. Then the ful- 
 fillment of your resolutions will save you from 
 shipwreck upon the rocks of disappointment, 
 regret and remorse. 
 
PRINTED BY R. R. DONNELLEY 
 AND SONS COMPANY AT THE 
 LAKESIDE PRESS, CHICAGO, ILL. 
 
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