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 CHAPTER XIX
RADIANCIES OF HUMOR
I want to radiate humor and my appreciation of it. But it must be
natural, genuine, kind-hearted, sweet, and pure. The humor that has
a sting for some one else, that is unkind, unjust, malicious, cruel, or
unclean is not for me. And, furthermore, I do not want that any one
should ever feel that I can or would enjoy such humor. I want to
radiate such a spirit, give forth such an "aura" that no one will ever
come to me with unkind or unclean humor, or expect me to want to
hear it.
No, true humor is gentle, kind, humane, and human. I think little of
any man or woman who cannot enjoy a good hearty laugh. I believe
in laughter; in joking, in fun, in wit, in humor—in the things that
provoke laughter. Laugh heartily, laugh loud, laugh long, and you will
oftentimes laugh away dyspepsia, the blues, and worries. Laugh at
your own misfortunes, your own mishaps. My dear friend, Burdette,
used to clap me on the back and exclaim in his bright, cheery voice:
"Be your own funny man." He once illustrated it by saying, in effect:
"You've laughed many a time watching a man chase his hat when a
windstorm ran away with it, but how do you feel when it's your own
hat? Take a look at yourself. See the spectacle you make—the
bewhiskered, the dignified, the long-legged—as you rush frantically
after the fleeing tile. Can't you see the fun in bending down, making
a dive for the hat, just at the moment an extra gust comes and—flip,
flop—the hat scoots on and you grasp the empty space. Laugh at
yourself, my boy, and you'll get hold of the world by the tail and
conquer it!"
How true it is!
The greatest humoristic after-dinner speaker in America to-day is
Simeon Ford. How often have I laughed at and with him. Study his
humor. Half of it is making fun at himself, his "bizarre, gothic style of
architecture," and that kind of thing. He pokes fun, slyly, at himself,
and watches the effect on other people. Instead of "guying" other,
and sensitive, people—(notice, I say sensitive, not sensible),—he
guys himself, and the more absurd the picture he can draw of
himself the more he seems to enjoy it. He is original, quaint,
individualistic, truly funny, not a mere retailer of old chestnuts,
warmed over at the brazier of his wit, but a creator, a real maker of
humor, and the result is people sit and laugh and laugh, and then
laugh some more, and when it is all over go away wondering what it
was all about. But there is no sarcasm, no sting, no malice in the
fun, no one is hurt, everything is as harmless as the frolics of a
young lamb.
So it was with dear little Marshall Wilder. Dear Marsh! how I loved
him! Handicapped with a distorted body, his mind was as quick as
lightning. How well I remember running in upon him in his bedroom
in a hotel in Buffalo one morning and asking him to come down to a
breakfast table of friends who had assembled to give me a "Good-
by." Though he was not well, he hastily threw on his clothes, came
down, and for an hour brightened our circle, with some of the most
flashing, bright, and spontaneous wit I ever heard. Everybody was
charmed, delighted, thrilled, for he sprang from gay to grave,
laughter to tears, jollity to pathos so startlingly quick as to keep us
with one hand to our eyes, wiping away the tears, when we had
originally raised them to hide our wide-open, laughing mouths. He
loved to make others happy; he was ever ready to plunge deep into
the pool of simple-hearted pure fun. Who will ever forget that day
when he, Elbert Hubbard, Von Liebich, with half a dozen or more of
the brightest minds of the Continent, who were visiting at Roycroft
together, planned to go to the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo. I
was privileged to be of the number. We planned to go as a lot of
country joskins, real "Hicks," with hayseed in our hair, and carrying
our carpet-bags with us. As I was the only bewhiskered man of the
"bunch," I was made the victim. I was to dress in country style, go
down the "Midway"—or whatever the street of shows was called—
and attract the attention of the "barkers" and draw their fire. Then
the others were to saunter up and we, in turn, would open up our
fire upon the barker. Can you imagine the results? We carried out
the plan exactly as contemplated. I ate liquorice and let the juice
flow down from the corners of my mouth, so that it looked like
tobacco juice, I gaped at everything, and listened with wide-eyed
wonder, I felt like a countryman, so now I looked like one, and I
became, immediately, the butt of the jokes and jests of the "spieler"
of the show before which I stood. I think I can fairly hold my own in
such a combat, and the audience that was assembled, generally
seemed to think so, but imagine the way the fur began to fly when
Hubbard arrived and chipped in, and Marshall and Von, and Bert II,
and each of the others. Talk about a stranger dog set on by a dozen
home dogs—it was nothing, compared with the fun we had
badgering and baiting that over-confident spieler. Then I moved on
to the next stand, far enough away, however, so that no one was
aware of our plot. The crowd soon "tumbled" and followed, and we
repeated the game to the infinite amazement of the discomfited
"barkers." It was the wildest revelry of good-natured, good-
humored, spontaneous fun I have ever engaged in, and a thousand
years can never efface its memory.
Dignity! What had we to do with dignity? We were fun-makers,
delight-makers, like the old-time Indians of the cliff-dwelling days,
and we went into the game with vim, energy, earnestness, abandon,
and enthusiasm.
And I learned a wonderful lesson, once, from Marshall Wilder, that
was worth many a long-winded sermon for practical usefulness in
meeting the hardships, the woes, the pains of life. I was on the
stage of a theater with him, just preparatory to his "act." He was
suffering excruciating agony—as he often did, from his frail and
deformed body—and sweat was pouring down his brow and cheeks.
"Put your arms around me, and love me tight, George!" he gasped,
"hold me tight," and I held him, clasping his hands also in mine. He
gripped me with fierce intensity, clearly indicating the pain he was
in, and thus we stood, until the call came for him. Then, wiping his
brow and face, with a smile that was at once ghastly and sweet in
its pathos, he rushed before his audience, and had them laughing at
his merry quips and quirks, his jests and jokes, before I could
recover from the sympathy I felt for his deep suffering. Brave,
courageous, plucky Marsh. Ready to make fun for others in spite of
his own pain. How often when men come to me with long drawn-out
tales of their woes, their pains, their sufferings, their trials, their
hardships, do I feel like saying to them: "Cut it out! Go and do as did
Marsh Wilder. Make some one else laugh. Make some one else
happy, and you'll forget your own troubles!" For it is true. The very
effort of concentration upon making others laugh, or add to their
happiness, largely, if not completely, leads to a forgetfulness of one's
own woes.
Then, too, the man who can laugh at himself wins a hearing from
the world that nothing else can gain for him. There is an appeal,
somehow, in this fact, that is irresistible. Bishop Peck, of the M. E.
Church, was a Falstaffian build of man. Indeed, it is said that he
weighed a full pound for every day in the year. A man with three
hundred and sixty-five pounds of corporeal presence naturally
possessed an aldermanic "front" of compelling proportions. On one
occasion the Bishop was called upon at the General Conference
(which, I believe, that year met in Baltimore), to represent the
church upon the Pacific Coast. The good bishop had a habit of
always stroking, or smoothing down his vest, when beginning his
address, and at this time, as he arose, and began his deliberate
strokings of his vast and protuberant rotundity, he accompanied it
with the words: "Brethren, the Pacific Slope greets you!"
His amazement, as a perfect roar of laughter greeted him and shook
the building, can well be imagined, yet he did not lose his sang-froid.
In another moment he had grasped the fun of the situation, and
laughing with the vast audience, seized upon that as a theme upon
which he played with eloquence, fervor, and power in an
extemporized speech which, as many who heard it say, he never
surpassed in his life.
Suppose his "dignity" had prevented his joining in the laugh at
himself! What an opportunity he would have lost.
I saw a similar event once in the Free Trade Hall, in Manchester,
England. That great assembly hall was crowded, awaiting the
coming upon the platform of the Conference of all the Baptist
Ministers of Great Britain. We had been waiting some time and I, for
one, was young enough to be impatient as the time announced drew
near. It was in the days of Moody and Sankey's great revivals in
England, and Sankey's hymn, "Hold the Fort!" had captured the
church-going ear. To pass away the time I started the song. The
audience caught on. We sang the first verse and the chorus with vim
and fervor. Then, just as we began the second verse, the body of
ministers began to march on to the platform, led by their gray-haired
president. Recall the lines and imagine the result as the words of the
marching ministers were united in our thoughts!

See the mighty host advancing

Satan leading on!

Some of us shrieked with laughter. One man near me nearly had a

fit of hysterics. They say Englishmen can't see a joke. I never saw an
American audience "catch on" any quicker than did that Manchester
one. In a moment the singing stopped and the place was in an
uproar of wildest laughter. The good president at first seemed
nonplused and confused, but some one must have explained it to
him, for before the ministers had scarce taken their seats, he
advanced to the edge of the platform, secured silence, and began to
the effect: "Beloved friends! If we seem like the hosts of evil,
marching with Satan at their head, we belie our looks. The Evil One
has blinded your eyes. We are the army of the other side. We are
Christian soldiers, engaged in a never-to-cease conflict with that
army of evil that we shall assuredly conquer," and so on, giving one
of the most pertinent, direct, spontaneous, and truly eloquent of
addresses.
He rose to the occasion—joined in the laugh upon himself, won his
audience, and then used the sympathy he had gained, to strike
home some deep and important truths.
This is what I want to live, to radiate: love of humor, readiness to
laugh at it even though it be laughing at myself, ready to make it
when I can for others, ready to join in other people's appreciation of
it.
 CHAPTER XX
RADIANCIES OF THE "ETERNAL NOW"
Is there any past, any future, in our lives? If I look back upon the
past, or anticipate the future, whether with joy or pleasure, do I not
do it in the now? To-morrow never comes, for when it arrives it is no
longer to-morrow,—it is now. Life is one eternal now. The great
trouble, however, with most people, is that they have not learned
that fact. They do not live in the now, they sit down and lament over
the past; weep that its joys are gone, its glories faded, altogether
oblivious of the resplendent beauties that now surround them, the
radiant joyousnesses that environ them, NOW. Or, they sit in fond
anticipation, in expectation, with impatient waiting for to-morrow, for
next week, for next year, ignoring the immediate and present sweet
singing of the birds, the exquisite daintiness of the flowers, their
delicate fragrance, the majesty and sublimity of the snowy mountain
peaks, the upright stateliness of the trees, the supernal clarity of the
sky, the pellucidness of the atmosphere, the champagne-like quality
of the air, NOW.
What time we lose, waste, pervert, by forgetting the duty, the joy,
the delight of living in the Eternal Now. Take your joys as they come
along. It is the Divine plan that every moment shall be filled with His
joy—the joy of living, of being.
Eyes are given to see with now! Are you using them now? Do you
gaze upon the grass, the trees, the flitting butterflies, the busy
insects, the bees, the beautiful birds, the clouds, the sky, the sea,
the rippling cascades, the everything of Nature, NOW, and enjoy
their many-formed, many-hued, many-graced splendors.
Ears are given for hearing now!
Are yours alert for all the sweet, the pleasant, the comforting, the
joyous, the sublime sounds that might come to them now? Or are
you like the "fools and blind" who will sit at a Boston Symphony
concert and gabble gossip or retail slander?
Palates are given to taste with now!
Are you tasting the apples, the rare lusciousness of grapes, peaches,
oranges, plums, and the thousand and one delicate fruits now, or
are you regretting the lost truffles, the sauces, the spices, the wines,
the stimulating things of yesterday, or longing for the Lucullus
repasts of to-morrow?
Oh, the content and happiness of taking joys as they come, in their
simpleness and naturalness, in their every-day, common, normal
order; of looking for them, expecting them, anticipating them, going
out, as it were, to meet them.
Is it only a walk of ten blocks (or five) to the store, or office, or
school? Are you ready as you step out of your door to inhale the
fragrance of the morning air, or enjoy its own peculiar delight if the
morning is wet, misty, foggy, rainy? Do you see the moving and sun-
lit clouds; the clear sky, the rustling leaves of the trees; the hopping
of the happy birds; the joyousness of the children walking to school?
Be alert, receptive, ready. Seize the small joy of the now, and you
will find it far more delightful than all the anticipations, and even the
realizations of what seem to be the large joys of the to-morrow.
One of the saddest pictures on canvas to me is one called "The
Pursuit of Pleasure." It represents a female figure as Pleasure,
floating through the air, and followed by an eager crowd of men and
women, of all ages and conditions in life. Reaching, grasping,
breathless, regardless of their tramplings upon each other,
indifferent that some of their whilom companions are fallen and
cannot arise, and that hopeless despair is depicted in their eyes and
faces, each and all of the remaining strugglers fix their eyes upon
the phantom though alluring figure. And thus the pursuit goes on
continuously; there is no reaching her; she is ever illusive and
evasive, a delusion and a snare, ever beckoning yet ever retreating.
In her sculptured fountain at the Panama-Pacific Exposition, Mrs.
Harry Payne Whitney expresses the same idea, but even more
forcefully than does the picture. Here are thirty-seven figures nearly
all intent upon reaching their goal of happiness. They cannot even
see what it is. Yet the eagerness depicted upon the faces, in the
straining attitudes, the strenuous striving in that one direction, all
typify the desire, the intentness, the resolute pursuit of happiness.
Then, alas, when the doors are reached, they are both found closed,
guarded by Assyrian and Egyptian figures, that suggest the occult
mystery of the beyond, and that look down sternly and unyieldingly
upon the two figures at their feet, long strivers, evidently pleading
for the admission that is denied them. There are two definite,
distinct, and different ways in which these two allegories can be
interpreted. One is that mankind ever lives in the world of the
senses, pursuing the gratifications of the now, the feastings, the
drinkings, the carousings, the pleasuring, the wantonings of the
sense-life, the sensual life, and that such a pursuit is ever doomed to
failure, for man—the spiritual, created in God's own image—can
never be satisfied with the temporary things of earth and sense.
The other interpretation is that man is ever seeking for some far-off,
great, extraordinary pleasure, joy, or satisfaction, something in the
future, rather than living in the smaller joys of the now. The child
longs to be the youth or maiden, enjoying "sitting up at nights,"
"going to parties," "eating candies," "going out with the boys,"
"smoking like a man"; the youth eagerly works for the time when he
shall be his own master, control his own business; the maiden, have
her lover, marry successfully, become the mistress of her own house;
the grown man looks forward to and works desperately for the time
when he shall have "made his pile," and the woman to "an assured
place in society." These, and a thousand and one "pursuits" engage
men and women.
In my own life I am eagerly desirous to radiate the opposite of both
of these conceptions. I certainly do not wish to belong to the class
pictured in Christ's parable of the rich man; he who thought only of
the so-called good things of this life which he would enjoy now—he
who said: "Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die."
The slightest observation of life, of the men and women one meets
daily, soon convinces one of the hollowness, the dissatisfaction, the
incompleteness of all earthly things. The subject is too trite to need
any amplification. Yet, the wonder of it is, that, in spite of this fact,
the great majority of people still thus strive for wealth, place, power,
honor, social success, possessions, attainments. Why is it that this
ignis fatuus has such power of allurement? Why is it that men and
women are so foolish, so slow to rule their actions by their own
inner spiritual awakenings, rather than the habits and fashions
followed by others?
I have no desire or ambition for fame, for honor, for success, for
place, for power, as such. They are useless to me save as I may use
them for the benefit, the happiness, the pleasure of my fellows. I am
slowly awakening to the realization of what I believe now to be a
primal fact, viz., that all a man can really hold and enjoy in his living
hand, in his soul, in his life, is that which he gives away, shares,
distributes among his fellows.
Elsewhere I have quoted Joaquin Miller's lines from Peter Cooper:

For all you can hold in your dead, cold hand,

Is what you have given away.

I now wish to radiate my belief in the enlargement of that idea as

stated above. Even knowledge can give no real satisfaction unless
shared, given to others; the joy of a picture owned is lost unless
others can enjoy with you. In other words, the possession of
anything for self alone is destructive of happiness. One learns slowly
but surely that even in these things of the mind and the soul:
That man who lives for self alone
Lives for the meanest mortal known.
 CHAPTER XXI
RADIANCIES OF EXTREMES
Life is made up of extremes and everything that comes between
them. There is the North Pole and there is the South Pole. There is
the heat of the fiery furnace and the cold of the Arctic Zone. There is
the height of heaven and the depth of hell; the voice of the thunder
and the whisper of the gentle zephyr.
Man is a singular being. He is as diverse as is the manifold face of
Nature upon which he gazes. His likes and dislikes are many and
varied. Men of equal intelligence and equal powers differ in their
ways of looking at the same thing. The poet Browning effectively
states this when he says:

Ten men love what I hate,

Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;
Ten, who in ears and eyes
Match mine.

In the face of such facts one is compelled to the conclusion that

personal idiosyncrasy or individual preference alone can decide what
it wants, needs, and must have, in this large diversity that is offered
it.
The fact that ten men who have equal powers of observation and
reflection as myself love the things that I hate, and reject the things
that I receive, has absolutely no influence in deciding me in regard
to the things that I hate and receive, any more than the fact that I
hate and receive things to which they have the antagonistic feeling
influences them; hence it is useless for me to attempt to enforce my
likings and antipathies upon others, even as it is useless for them to
attempt to force theirs upon me.
So I have been led to accept the philosophy, which I wish to radiate
to all men, that it appears to me the Divine Wisdom has provided for
these personal idiosyncrasies of human nature by giving to us the
extremes of things with everything that lies between. So, regardless
of my own preference, I believe that the strong wind is as much a
beneficent force of Nature as is the zephyr; the thundering cataract
of Yosemite as the placid Mirror Lake; the avalanche as the
snowflake; the thunder as the violet; the earthquake as the rippling
rill; the blazing meteor as the Milky Way; the flaming sun-spots as
the sparkling dewdrop; the fiery volcano as the quiet glowworm; the
giant sequoia as the tiny forget-me-not; the thundering breakers of
ocean as the gentle pattering raindrop; the fiery boiling geyser as
the silently flowing fountain; the dazzling comet as the serene fixed
star; the rugged Grand Canyon as the flower-besprinkled sward; the
monster whale as the tiny gold-fish; the giant elephant as the timid
mouse; the blaring trumpet as the soothing guitar; the startling
kettle-drum as the smoothly flowing 'cello; the clanging cymbals as
the seductive oboe.
I firmly believe and wish to radiate my belief that God has as much
use for the man of the farm as for the man of the drawing-room; the
rudeness of "The man with the hoe" as the smoothness of the man
with the higher education. He needs the arid desert as well as the
fertile plain; the wild ruggedness of the ravine as well as the
cultivated garden; the colorless abysses of the glacier as well as the
flower-besprinkled foothills. He has use for the snowy plains of the
north as well as the rice fields of the south; the cactus as well as the
orchid; the giant suaharo as well as the shrinking gilia; the prickly
pear, as the velvety peach; the sword-fish, as the nautilus; the shark
as the flying-fish; the flaming sunrises and sunsets, as the tender
tints of the lily, and the night-blooming cereus; the deep purples, as
well as the blush rose; the glowing yellows as the softer blues; the
piercing greens as the quieter violets. The bluffs and promontories
that thrust their heads out into the ocean are as much a part of
God's great out-of-doors and of as much use as are the placid
landscapes; the mountain heights as much needed as are the
flower-bespangled levels; the vast reaches of prairie as the secluded
and confined valley. The piercing cold of the Arctic has as much a
place in Nature as the alluring mildness of Southern California or the
Riviera; the monster tides of the Bay of Fundy as the ripples of the
placid pool.
The sturdy and warlike Viking has as much a place in history as the
diplomatic and artistic Italian; the Negro as the Caucasian; the
Chinaman as the French; the Oriental as the English; the Japanese
as the American.
El Capitan and Gibraltar are not exquisitely carved statues by Canova
or Thorwaldsen, but they have just as much a place in the history of
the world's development.
The wilds of the high Sierras, in all their rude and majestic splendor,
rugged and tremendous vastness, where clear-eyed, horny-handed,
strong-oathed, and rudely clad men wander and labor, are very
different from the city drawing-rooms,—those places of pink teas
and white kid-gloved men and women; those breeding places of
superficial conventionality and effete conceptions of people and life,
but I doubt not that the high Sierras have produced more of benefit
to mankind than all the drawing-rooms of all the civilizations.
I love the pastoral and quiet landscapes of the Connecticut River
Valley, of placid Killarney, of the quiet vale of Avoca, of picturesque
Normandy, but the passion, power, majesty, sublimity, solitude,
dreariness and desolation of the far-reaching Colorado Desert, deep
descending Grand Canyon, bold escarpments of the Red Rock
country, and other tremendous and solitary places of Nature
command me, allure me, appeal to me, and dominate me quicker
than the quiet places of beauty.
What, in Nature, to some men is the end of things to others is the
beginning. The sacred writer says that God even "maketh the wrath
of men to praise him," as well as their love and tenderness.
Life is not all comprised about a slender figure and transparent
profile; faultless coils of hair; soft, rich, clinging garments; laces
falling over taper fingers; graceful and dignified demeanor; low and
sweetly modulated voice, and the perfection of faultless manners.
There may be a place for the rude, uncouth clodhopper with
disfigured features; tousled hair; clad in homespun or cheap denim;
rags taking the place of lace; boorish and clumsy demeanor; a voice
like a steamer foghorn; and the apotheosis of all that is blundering
and awkward in manner.
I do not, for one moment, defend any unnecessary boorishness or
uncouthness of manner, and must not be understood as doing so,
but at the same time, in spite of these things, I am impelled to state
my conviction that the latter class is more needful to the real
progress of the world than the former. I notice that several times in
the history of the world, canal-drivers, shepherd-boys, wood-
choppers, and rail-splitters have made wonderful pilots for the Ship
of State.
God has use in His world for the rough as well as the polished; the
roar of the thunder as well as the coo of the dove; the stentorian
trumpet-tone as well as the still, small voice. John the Baptist came
from the desert robed in skins and camel's hair; his voice, doubtless,
was not soft and well-modulated as were those of Herodias and
Salome. He was "the voice of one crying in the wilderness." His call
contained the thunder tones of the storm and wild cry of the lonely
eagle seeking its solitary aerie; the strength and the roar of the lion.
It was neither refined, pleasing, nor cultured, but it possessed life
and power and it was chosen to herald the coming of the Messiah.
Nowhere have we been told that Elijah, Jeremiah and Daniel were
noted for the soft and dulcet tones of their voices, yet they were the
chosen instruments of the Divine in overthrowing dynasties and
changing the history of nations. Peter the Hermit was not a sweet-
voiced singer in Israel, but he started a movement that led to the
civilization of Europe. I doubt not that the charges of the British
against Joan of Arc that she cried in a coarse military voice when
she led the armored hosts of France were true, but she drove the
foreign invader from the soil of her beloved France where they had
held footing for nigh upon a hundred years and no one else had
been able to win a victory from them.
I doubt not there were times when Grant's voice did not possess the
mellow and refined quality of the drawing-room exquisite, but he
won victories and made a united people possible. John Brown was
rude, rough, uncouth, boorish, when compared with the refined and
polished cavaliers of the South. They called him a bandit, an invader,
a revolutionist, an anarchist, and they captured and hanged him, but
to thousands of men his crazy dream of the invasion of the South to
forcibly compel the freedom of the slave is being more and more
seen by hundreds of thousands of wise men to have been one of the
most practical and effective means of calling the attention of men to
the moral principle involved in the question of slavery, as to whether
men of one color of blood or skin had the right to hold in bondage
men of a different color.
When Theodore Parker was denouncing the iniquities of any and all
slavery, his voice was not as soft and gentle and sweetly modulated
as that of Longfellow, yet it played as important a part in the history
of the development of mankind and stirred men to higher endeavor
on the part of their suffering and down-trodden fellows.
What, then, is the upshot of the whole matter? It seems to me it is
this: Listen to the voice that appeals to your own soul; that lifts you
from the lower to the higher; that thrills you to deeds of heroism,
that stimulates you to acts of nobleness, that calls you to a life of
helpful self-sacrifice; and while doing this, cease to criticise, to find
fault, to censure the kind of voice to which you do not care to listen.
The strong, vigorous, robust, red-blooded man of the out-of-doors
generally will not speak nor act with the perfect restraint and
conventionality of the man born in the atmosphere of the drawing-
room, but his message may be just as helpful to the world, and as
divinely inspired as that of his more refined and dignified prototype.
 CHAPTER XXII
ABSORPTION IN RELATION TO RADIATION
Most important factors in Living the Radiant Life are Living the Life
of Possession and Living the Absorptive Life. To radiate one must
possess, and to possess one must absorb. To give largely and well,
one must receive largely and well. The Absorptive Life is as essential
as the Radiant Life. Out in the great silences are the eloquent voices
of God ready to speak to the attentive soul; out in Nature a million
voices are ready to impart knowledge to the ignorant. All one has to
do to receive is to "ask"; not with the voice but with the whole
being. As a sponge absorbs water up to the limit of its capacity, so
should man absorb, and then, unlike the sponge, which must be
squeezed from without ere it will give off that which it has received,
man should radiate from within all that he has received.
There are few people in the world who are true absorbers. We are
so full of prejudices, conceits, notions, that we refuse to receive
from this, that, or the other source, because, forsooth, we in our
pride deem the source unworthy. The true life receives from every
source. Call nothing unclean. All things are yours. God is over and in
all. Prove all things. Open your heart to all good from whatever
source. Stand humbly before God ready to receive. Keep your hands
open; your eyes, your ears, your nostrils, your whole nature in a
state of active receptivity. Be afraid of nothing. Some one comes and
tells you that in this or that he has found spiritual life and help. You,
however, have been taught to regard that as a dangerous thing, so
you are afraid of it. Arise and be above such fears. Are you a man, a
woman, a human soul, made in the image of God and given powers
of thought, of discernment, of decision? Or are you a mere puppet
to be worked by the string of other men's thoughts, other men's
ideas, other men's opinions? Listen for yourself; think for yourself;
decide for yourself; act for yourself. If a thing seems right to your
own soul do it though the heavens fall and you suffer the
condemnation of all mankind. True and rapid progress will never
come to the race until individual men learn that they alone are the
arbiters of their own destiny.
Go out into Nature, into the silences, into the workshops and the
marts of trade and absorb. Listen to every good voice that speaks,
and if you are not sure whether the voice is good or not, listen
anyhow and "prove" it by the infallible tests of purity, unselfishness,
and uplift.
Every human soul may be a wireless telegraph receiver. God is
flashing out messages every moment from His million and one
instruments all over the universe. They are all kinds of messages—
but all from the one spirit, and therefore all spiritual. They appeal to
the bodies, the minds, the souls of men, and all you have to do to
receive them is to have your receiving apparatus of body, mind, and
soul attuned to the sending apparatus of the Loving Sender. Get in
tune. Cry out to God: I want all there is. I cast aside all
prejudgments, all conceits, all ideas. Let me hear direct from Thee.
Go out into the fields and receive from the spirit that is in, over, and
about Nature. Every tree, flower, grass, bird, insect, animal, cloud,
storm, rock, stream has a message for you if you will but hear it.
Love alone can open your heart to receive; it is the key with which
the soul and mind and body are set in tune. Get yourself into
relationship with Nature. Feel your kinship. God is the Father of
every tree as much as he is your Father. Go and claim your family.
And claim all the good they possess as your own, for it is yours and
merely awaits your taking. As a child you did this with your mother.
The nourishment of her breasts, the gentle hush of her voice, the
soothing touch of her fingers, the brooding yearning of her love; all
these were yours the moment you cried out for them. Mother Nature
is as full of the spirit of Love as your physical mother. Indeed the
latter is one in spirit with the former. Call out then. Demand, with
the simple expectancy of the child, all that you need. Call for it
confident that it will come. Expect it, and according to your
expectancy it will be given unto you.
But to do this you must be a true child of your Nature Mother. You
must confidently lean on her breast, you must confidently blend
yourself with her, you must let her touch you as your mother used to
touch you when, a helpless babe, you lay in your cradle. Her hand
went all over your body, from head to foot, with loving, soothing
caress. Let the sun and the breezes touch your body in like fashion.
Their fingers will soothe with mesmeric power and at the same time
bring health and strength and vigor, and withal, peace. Go and lie
down on the bosom of the Earth Mother; feel her pulsating heart,
and in time, when you have forgotten your artificiality and
pretension, your so-called civilization and culture, and found anew
your kinship with the Earth, you will feel the whole power of Nature
pulsing through your veins; the fever of your unhealthy blood will be
soothed and it will flow naturally and coolly as the sweet sap that
ascends to the nourishment of the topmost branch and leaf.
And when life has wounded you, cut you, torn you almost limb from
limb, and you feel and see yourself only an almost dismembered
trunk, Nature will soothe and heal you. Your wounds will soon be
scarred over and the trees, the ferns, the birds, the grasses, the
squirrels, the bees, the buds, the blossoms, and the butterflies,—all
—will associate with you on equal terms. They will neither laugh at
you nor repel you, but as loving friends come and associate with you
in sweet and dear kinship. You will walk through the aisled forest
temples of God repentant and forgiven for sins of the past, and
shame and sorrow will flee away, replaced by the calm joy of the
peace that flows into the receiving heart like a river. You will undress
and bathe in the sunshine and the pools, the creeks and the rivers,
fearless and unabashed, for you will have exposed your soul to the
soul of things; real shame has nothing to do with externals.
But, you ask, how am I to begin to observe and thus absorb the
good gifts of God into my very life in order that I may live and
radiate them to others? Let me help you to begin!
To be satisfied is to stagnate and petrify. In his Rabbi Ben Ezra,
Robert Browning has three pregnant lines:

What I aspired to be,

And was not, comforts me:
A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale.

The aspiring soul is the one reaching out to absorb. One might be a
satisfied brute by closing all the avenues of aspiration and high
ambition, but it is immeasurably better to be an unsatisfied, aspiring
man rather than the satisfied low-minded brute.
Aspiration is the hunger of the soul. Hunger implies need. So foster
—cultivate—your hunger. The hungry seek for food, and food gives
new life, new growth, new strength, new power. The Universe of
God is full of food for man's mind and soul. And it is of infinite
variety, capable of nourishing myriads of soul-powers that now lie
dormant in your nature. Awaken to your needs. Be on the lookout
every moment for the free gifts of God that hang from the trees of
life that grow in every back yard as well as on high mountains and in
every fertile orchard.
There is a great deal more in this expression, "cultivate a hunger,"
than at first sight appears. People who satisfy their lower appetites
know nothing of the true hunger of the soul. And consequently when
they see the food designed by the Almighty Love and Wisdom to
satisfy to the full all the demands of true hunger, these grossly
contented minds pass them by, their eyes are closed so that they
see not; their senses are dulled so that they smell not, hear not, feel
not, taste not. I have seen people fast from every kind of food, solid
or liquid, for ten, twenty, thirty or forty, and in one case even for
eighty days. At the end of these fasts, the fasters related with
delight their keen pleasure and satisfaction at realizing what real
hunger was as differentiated from the mere appetite for food that
they had felt prior to their fasts. As a rule we eat too much. We
satiate ourselves upon foods that are not always good for us, and
thus destroy the true normal appetite for pure, good, healthful,
simple foods.
Among these people who fasted were several who were thin and
poorly nourished, and yet who had abnormal appetites and ate far
more food than those who were robust, hearty, vigorous, and
strong. The physician said, what was self-evident, that the more
food they ate, the less nourished they became, because they
overloaded themselves with food and much of it was the wrong kind.
It was hard work for these people to fast, but at the close of the
fast, their abnormal and unnatural appetite had disappeared and in
its stead had come a true, normal hunger which revealed to them
the right kind of food that they should eat to satisfy the demands of
the body and which, when they did eat, was immediately
assimilated. The result was that within a month or two, after having
learned what real hunger was as differentiated from perverted
appetite, they were fat and rosy, plump and vigorous, beautiful and
energetic.
It is exactly the same in our mental and spiritual life. We feed upon
the grosser foods to satiation and repletion and the result is that we
suffer from mental and spiritual dyspepsia and are pale, thin,
anæmic and weak, where we should be beautiful, vigorous,
energetic, and strong. Quit stuffing and craving the lower foods.
Stay away from the theater, the vaudeville, the cheap show. Quit
reading the sensational novel, the trashy story of excitement. Give
your brain, your mind, your soul, a rest. Fast a while. Do as Elijah
did, as Jesus, as Mahomet. Go into the desert, the solitude, and for
forty days and nights rest, body, mind, and soul, until real hunger
takes possession of you. Then come forth and begin to absorb from
all the great wealth of God that surrounds you.
There are three chief sources of purest mind and soul supply and I
wish briefly to consider each one of these. They are: 1. Observation.
2. Reading. 3. Intuition.
This may not be a scientific classification, but it suffices for my
purpose. I have not put the most important first, but observation is
the one man most relies upon.
1. Observation is God's method of filling up the inner supply of
man's knowledge through the senses. He sees, feels, hears, smells,
tastes, and through these avenues receives mental impressions. One
can observe the lower things or the higher. Every day as I ride on
the train or street cars, I observe men reading their newspapers. As
a rule I can tell in a few minutes what a man's mental hunger is by
watching him read. He chooses the pink sheet and devours with
avidity the stories of prize fights. He turns to the pages devoted to
courts and reads the accounts of murder trials or of scenes where
lawyers quarrel or jangle and where witnesses testify to disgusting
and loathsome things. Another man is interested in clean athletics
and reads with interest of college football, Marathon games, and the
like. Still another is absorbed in the news of a higher nature, a
meeting of the Hague Peace Conference, the endeavors of
statesmen to bring about a better understanding between the North
and the South, between nations. In other words, a man takes what
his appetite craves out of the newspaper. Just so it is with all life.
Men take whatever their appetites crave. If the appetite is false,
unnatural, abnormal, they take injurious food. Only when the
depraved appetite becomes changed into natural, normal hunger, is
the right kind of food sought and found. Yet there is immeasurably
more of the pure, good food to satisfy the perfect, normal hunger,
than there is of the carrion which the vulture instincts in us crave.
2. Reading. While I have put this under a separate head, it really
belongs under the head of observation, for the reading of books is
but observation of the observations of other men. Yet, as I shall
show later, this is a special field which one should endeavor to glean
with care.
3. Intuition. To the really normally hungry soul, this is the chief,
indeed, the only source of spiritual food. It is what Emerson called
the "Oversoul," and what Doctor Buck meant when, in speaking of
Walt Whitman, he said he possessed the "cosmic conscience." It is
receptiveness to universal truth, Divine truth, that truth which knows
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