RADIANCIES OF THE WILL

There are three things I wish to radiate as to my own will. We speak of men being self-willed, strong-willed, weak-willed, and the like, but at the outset I wish to radiate my desire to be "Divine-willed." By this I mean I wish to recognize the world-wide—nay, the universe-wide—difference between the great, all-powerful, all-wise, all-beneficent, all-harmonious will of the Great Creator, and the oftentimes foolish, weak, wavering, irresponsible, ignorant, mistaken will of the human being. Every real man and woman wishes his, her, life to be a useful life, a life that accomplishes something, and that something must be "worth while." It is essential, however, if one would accomplish this that he start right. Now, here is the crucial question—How can you know that you are right? The answer to this question is what I would put into every young man's and young woman's heart—into every boy's and girl's heart—so that, at the start, he, she, may be sure a right start is being made. The only sure way is to drop your own will and become "Divine-willed." This by no means signifies that you become a nobody, a cipher, an insignificant ant in the world. It is just the reverse. It is allying yourself with the right, the only right, the perfect right, the unchangeable right. Suppose the case that a man starts out in life with the determination to be self-willed about the multiplication table. He insists upon his freedom, his individuality, his self-will, and refuses to be tied to any table made by any one else, be that one God, angel, or man. Who cannot see that such a man is a fool? It is impossible to reject, to "buck against" the multiplication table. Every man, sooner or later, has to swallow it, accept it wholly, completely, unreservedly, live by it, swear by it, die by it, and more than that he has to do it gladly, willingly, or it can never be a real part of himself. If he is all the time protesting against it, and declaring that it ought to be changed or abolished, or not quite so dogmatic in its assertions, he will all the time be worried, distressed, irritated, because it pays no attention to his wishes. Two times two make four, no matter who kicks, or is irritated, or wishes it to be changed, and so with every other statement of the whole table.

What I am getting at is this, that, though we may not always see it at first, or even at second or third sight, the moral world is governed by a multiplication table as sure and certain, as unchangeable and fixed as is the mathematical world. And it is the acceptance of the moral multiplication table that I call being "Divine-Willed." A man may live for years swindling his neighbors and giving them fourteen ounces for a pound, and think he has fooled the multiplication table as easily as he has fooled his customers, but the rate never changed; it was sixteen ounces all the time. A man may fool his neighbors and himself in regard to the moral multiplication table, but sooner or later, here or hereafter, in this incarnation or some other, he will have to learn to accept, love, and live by it in every act, thought, and word. It cannot be any other—there is no other door—this is the only salvation. This is accepting Christ—the Truth, the Way, the Life, living the Life He lived, filled with the Divine-Will, the Divine Spirit, that filled him. Whether you are a gambler, a sport, a liar, a cheat, a Sunday-school superintendent, a fool, a drunkard, a senator, a professor of religion, an agnostic, a wise man or a mere child in knowledge, you can never enter the Kingdom of Joy, Peace, Blessedness, that we call Heaven, unless you conform to the Divine Moral Multiplication Table. This is what I am endeavoring to radiate—that I am trying to set aside my imperfect human will, which sometimes kicks against the unchangeable and immovable, and accept the perfect, complete, and unchangeable.

But you ask: How am I to know this moral multiplication table? Easy enough. Don't try to take it all in at once. Begin at the beginning. Learn the "twos" first. Twice one are two, twice two are four, twice three are six, and so on. Start on the Ten Commandments. Master and live them. Then absorb the Golden Rule. Then try the Sermon on the Mount.

There's enough to keep you busy for a few days, anyhow. But I suppose some of you will say you can't do it. Nonsense! You've got to do it, and you won't really live until you do. You can't dodge the multiplication table; nor can you dodge these. There is no escape. Divinity never made any man or any woman who could get away from them. Creeds, church dogmas, men's ideas about religion or what they call religion may be true, or may not be true, but the fundamental principles of the life of the Spirit always have existed, always will exist, and every man, sooner or later, must come into perfect harmony with them. This is what I want to radiate—my desire that I should become Divine-willed and that every one else should be the same—quick, soon, now.

Then, having started right, one may have more confidence and assurance in taking the next step, which is the second thing connected with the will that I would radiate, viz.: I will to be good for something. What is the purpose, the object of life? What are we here for? To eat and drink, sleep and satisfy our appetites and then die like other mere animals who do the same thing? I don't believe it. I never did. As Browning puts it, a spark has disturbed my clod, and now I am discontented to remain a clod—a mere brute beast, living, as does the hog, merely for the satisfaction of my physical senses. I feel higher, nobler, worthier aspirations within me. John Muir, the great California Nature-lover, scientist, and poet, wrote when he was twenty-seven years old a letter in which he said:

Here were four noble and beautiful aspirations. 1. To go to college and learn more. 2. To invent useful machinery. 3. To study medicine that he might lessen human misery. 4. To be a Humboldt and explore the world for the enlightenment of mankind.

What do you want to be?

To go to college to have a good time (!)—save the mark—as some students do? I was once riding on a railway train going to Boston, and at New Haven twenty-seven young students got on board and every one drunk. Do you think Muir had anything of that kind in mind when he said he wanted to go to college? At one of the great universities of the West I was present when the students made a great uproar because the faculty had prohibited beer-wagons from coming upon the campus to deliver their wares at the "frat" houses. I have seen university "men" celebrating some baseball or other victory when the celebration has taken the form of a drunken and sensual orgy. Can you imagine a man like Muir ever having wanted to engage in such a disgraceful and degrading scene?

Muir started out right. He began by seeking to be "Divine-willed," and then by willing to be "good for something."

A friend of mine, who radiates love and helpfulness to every human being no matter how low and degraded, once helped a poor, ugly, besotted son of the gutter, who had sunk about as low as he possibly could sink. One day as he sat on his piazza enjoying the beautiful calm of a glorious spring afternoon he saw his protÉgÉ approaching. Giving him a glad welcome the two were soon in conversation and the gutter-waif finally expressed his thanks for the help and encouragement he had received, and, as is natural with every really awakened soul, wanted to do something in return for what he felt my friend had done for him. In vain the helper of men protested there was nothing he wished to have done, but the one who had been helped kept on insisting that he must do something. He said, "I not only want to be good, but I want to be good for something. Now, what can I do?"

"Well," at last said my friend, "since you must do something, go out and find somebody worse off, lower down, more needy than you were when you first came to me, and help him."

As he went away my friend settled down to an afternoon's study and enjoyment of his books, and of Nature, but within an hour his protÉgÉ returned wearing a smile that reached almost from ear to ear. As he entered the gate he called out: "I've got him! I've got him!"

"Got who?"

"Why, the man you sent me for!"

"What man?"

"The man you told me to go and find and help. I've found him, and I thought I couldn't help him better than by bringing him to you."

"Where is he?"

"He's waiting out here by the barn, for I couldn't persuade him to come up until I had first seen and told you."

"Bring him along!"

As the two derelicts returned, the one towing the other up the walk, my friend said the sight of the second vagabond and outcast was almost too much for him. He was not only ragged and filthy, but thin to emaciation, with that horrible look of long continued debauching degradation. The principal feature about him was his nose—the large, red, pimply nose of the habitual drunkard. Almost instinctively the lower human in my friend asserted itself. It rebelled against having anything to do with so vile-looking and disgusting a wretch. "What's the use?" he exclaimed, almost aloud.

Then, suddenly, these thoughts came: "Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these my brethren ye did it unto me." "This man is as much a child of God as I am. The real man in him is as Godlike as I. He is my brother. We are both sons of God." "And," said he, "I instantly arose and went to meet him, with outstretched hand of cordial welcome."

To shorten the story I can only relate how, after he had had a hearty meal and a long conversation, the outcast finally poured out his soul to the man who had met him as a brother.

"I was not always what you now see me. I was in a good position, honored, respected. Had a beautiful family, a good home, was the superintendent of a Sunday School, the leader of a church choir, and happy in my home, my church, my friends. But I was tempted and fell. I ran away from home and all my responsibilities, and went on falling lower and lower, until this very morning I vowed that the next fall would be into the river or a suicide's grave. But God must have meant me for something or He would not have taken the trouble to get me here this morning. I'm going to try to rise."

With cheering words he was heartily and sincerely encouraged, with neither rebukes nor cant. As he rose to go, he said, "What can I do for you to show my gratitude for what you have done for me?" and he would not take "No" for an answer. He was finally told he might mow the lawn if he chose, and in telling the story, my friend said, with tears in his eyes: "He was so sincere that he went over it four times. He really seemed to have shaved, instead of mowed it." He was then allowed to take a bath, and my friend fitted him out as well as he could with an old suit of clothing. In the meantime a couple of hundred friends who had been invited for an evening open-air social chat and singing began to arrive. The organ was brought out from the parlor, one of the number began to play, and then my friend called for a volunteer choir to come and surround the organ to lead the singing. To his great surprise the bathed and reclothed outcast gently sidled up with the rest. Some of the elegantly dressed ladies looked upon him with suspicion and some fear, which, however, dropped away in great measure, as he began to sing. For, strange to say, though he afterwards declared he had not sung a note for several years, the assertion of the purpose to live a new and clean life, seemed not only to bring back the desire to sing, but actually gave him back his voice. His rich clear tenor soared sweetly and without effort over the voices of the others and then blended perfectly with them in glorious harmony.

A week later, when the friends came, he was there again, and the short seven days of new resolve and high endeavor had so changed him in appearance that no one knew him again. A job had been found for him, and this was done in a remarkable way. Without seeing him, a gentleman, filled with the helpful spirit, and desirous of being good "for something," at my friend's request interested himself in finding him occupation. His capacity was so quickly proven that he was put into a responsible position where a two-thousand-dollar bond was required, which he supplied. He worked so thoroughly and efficiently that he was soon promoted, and ere many months had gone by his family, so long separated from him, was with him in happiness and content. Before a year of service he gained the special reward of $1,000 given each year by the firm that employed him for the highest general efficiency shown in any department, and is to-day honored, respected, back again in the high estate from which he had fallen, but a far wiser, nobler, and better man.

Through tribulation and sorrow, pain and woe, wretchedness and despair, sin and its consequences he had learned the lesson, that you cannot shirk the moral multiplication table—that there is no short cut to goodness, except to accept at once, instead of later, the will of the Divine.

Go back for a few moments to the first outcast, who brought this second one to my friend. Had he gone away with the thought that now he must make some money, he must take care of himself first, the second man might have filled a suicide's grave. He started out right—to be Divine-willed—to be unselfish, to be helpful to the rest of the world, and those worse off than himself. Muir didn't want to study medicine to become a great physician for the purpose of making money, but to relieve the pain of unfortunate sufferers. He willed to be good "for something." This is the spirit, the life, I would radiate on every hand, every day. I do not mean that all endeavor for self-improvement, self-culture, self-benefit is undesirable. By no means. But the nearer it approximates to the unselfish ideal, the better it will be. When Walt Whitman was a young man, he was a house-builder. He happened to strike a "building boom," and made money so fast that, said he, "I was in danger of becoming rich." And he decided to go and be an unpaid nurse in the Union Army, rather than spoil himself by becoming rich. To gain riches is good as far as it goes—but it goes a very short way in the road to manhood, character, nobleness of life. So whatever you will to do and be, put a high ideal before you, something immeasurably better than mere money-getting. Make your profession a means of grace, of character-building, of enabling you to benefit and bless the world. Mere financial success can easily be attained, but you will surely not be content with that. Hitch your wagon to a star, and soar upwards. Aim at the high things. Will to do great, noble, beneficent things and that will be willing to be good "for something."

The third thing in connection with the human will that I wish to radiate is what I might term "the insistence of the human will." After I have willed to be "Divine-willed," and to "will to achieve a high and noble purpose," I want to compel my will to keep on willing that which I have already willed. It is comparatively easy to will to do, or be, something, but alas! how far short some of us come from attaining that which we have willed to be. When Jesus sent out His disciples He gave them many warnings, much encouragement, informed them of the difficulties they would encounter, and then incited them to persistence of endeavor by assuring them that "He that endureth to the end shall be saved." It is this thought of "endurance," or "persistence" that I would ever radiate. I have set before me an aim, an object, worthy to be achieved. Though it may be difficult to attain, I will to keep on willing until it is attained.

A short time ago I watched the students at the Physical Culture Training School, in Chicago. It gives me a good illustration of what I would ever radiate.

I saw the leader of one of the classes do a particular act, and then the students, one after another, tried to follow the leader in doing that thing. Some of the men who tried, willed to do it all right, but they did not succeed. Many times a man wills to do a thing when he does not seem competent, but the real man keeps on until he makes himself competent. So with some of these. They went back and tried again—and went back and tried again, and the men who willed and then kept at it until they became competent were the ones that achieved.

One of the great lessons of all life is, not merely to learn to will—that is easy enough—but to insist upon the will keeping at it until we accomplish what we have determined to do. We "will" every day to do things, and yet we do not do them. We say, "I am going to do this; I am going to do that; or the other." We start out in life and we have all kinds of ambitions and aspirations before us, and we say, "This is going to be my achievement; I intend to accomplish this thing." But we get to be twenty-five—thirty years of age, and we have not achieved—that is, the great mass of people have not.

Why?

Because we have not learned this lesson of the Insistence of the Human Will. We have determined to do a thing and then we have not had the power or the courage or the determination or the endurance to keep on willing until the thing desired was achieved.

Let us suppose a case: A man starts in a race; he is on the ground ready to spring forward at the firing of the pistol. The moment the pistol is fired he makes his forward bound and goes ahead as hard as he can. Is a good start all that is needed? I picked up a picture recently of a runner who was coming to the end of his race. His face revealed clearly what a struggle he was having. His mouth was wide open, and he was laboring to the very extremity of his strength and power; he was "enduring to the end." He made a good start, but now at the latter part of the journey the race was more difficult; it was almost dangerous because he was panting so hard he could scarcely get his breath. The whole face, the whole body, seemed in pain and distress; but he was enduring; he was going on. It is the man who not only makes the start, but he who endures that wins the race.

It is not those who start in with the greatest hope, and faith, and energy, and courage, but "He that shall endure to the end shall be saved." It is the enduring to the end. Hence let me urge upon you the speedy learning of this important lesson of life. After you have willed to do a good thing put your purpose before you; keep it clearly, positively in sight all the time; then, every day and every hour, resolve to do that which you have determined to do; in other words, insist that you do what you have willed to do.

I was once very much interested in watching Bernarr Macfadden, the editor of Physical Culture magazine. I was favored with opportunities for coming in close touch with him. The way he insists that his will shall endure; the way he takes himself by the throat, as it were, and insists, is most interesting to me. One day I started out with him for a walk. He was quietly and easily getting himself in training so that he could walk fifty miles and be fresh and vigorous enough at the end of the walk so that he could give a lecture. Certainly it is a delightful and a profitable thing to be able to walk fifty miles without exhausting fatigue. We started out together, but after walking twelve miles I felt weary, and returned. But he went on, and when he returned that night I found he had walked thirty-seven miles. Though he was doing all his regular and arduous work, he was quietly insisting on these long walks, and in a very short time he would accomplish his fifty miles daily with comparative ease. He has mastered the idea—"The Insistence of the Human Will."

Take an inventor. No man ever invents anything unless he insists day after day, in spite of discouragements, in spite of failures, in spite of opposition, sometimes in spite of the stealings of people who would rob him of what he has already accomplished. The man who has the real desire to be an inventor keeps on and on, compelling his will to rewill what he has already willed, and I could fill these pages with the life stories of men who have determined, and of women who have determined, and who have achieved because they have learned this lesson of the insistence of the will.

I once had the pleasure of talking with Thomas A. Edison, in his laboratory, in Orange, N. J. I said, pointing to a mass of interesting looking materials: "What is this, Mr. Edison?" He said, "Oh, I have been working for thirty years on that thing."

"How are you getting along with it?"

He replied, "Well, sometimes I think we are making progress, and then again I think we are not, but the only way we can achieve is by keeping everlastingly at it, and when I can't work, I set my men to work on it, and we are slowly getting results."

And so Mr. Edison every once in awhile astounds the world with some marvelous achievement. People suppose he stumbles on it—that he discovers it in a moment, and perhaps he does, but that moment was made possible by the thousands upon thousands of moments that were as steps he had taken leading up to the place where the vision burst upon him. Do you see the thought? It is the Insistence of the Human Will that compels achievement. It is the man that never lets up that gains the reward.

Fifty years ago a man named Judah set out to survey a railroad across the great Sierra Nevada range of mountains, that vast barrier that seems to separate California from the rest of the world. The people practically said, "You are a fool to think of such a thing," but he calmly replied: "I know I can put a road through; I am going to try it anyhow." So he began to climb those mountain heights. He threaded the passes one by one. He took his men and they worked day after day, week after week, month after month, upon what seemed to be an impossibility.

What was the result? He kept at it until he achieved. He made his plans and made them so well that he ultimately succeeded in convincing the House of Representatives and the United States Senate that such a railroad was possible.

Then four men, Huntington, Crocker, Stanford, and Hopkins, determined to build the road that he had surveyed. Again the pessimists said: "It is impossible; you will never raise the money to build a railroad over the Sierra Nevadas." But the four men worked away, and little by little got the money. As they built they were harassed on every hand. Labor troubles in those days were terrible. The President of the company said, "I don't know what we are going to do." Crocker, the man who had undertaken to see after the actual building of the road, said: "I know what I am going to do; I am going to get help to build that railroad somewhere." And so he sent a man to China to secure a lot of Chinese laborers. These were brought to this country, and the result was that with those Chinamen, in defiance of the President of his company, who had said that Chinamen should not be employed, Crocker built the railroad. And now you can cross the Sierra Nevada range without a thought of care because of the dominant, insistent will of that man and his associates.

The fact of the matter is, if you are going to achieve anything in life you will have to be "drivers"—you will have to keep at it until you succeed. You will have to be a slave driver, and you yourself will be the slave, willingly, gladly, joyously, of your own purpose. Do you want to be a slave to your own purpose? Do you want to do the things that you have willed to do? Some of us get the idea that bondage—to be bound to anything—is always an unpleasant thing. Not at all! Bind yourself to a high and noble purpose. Make yourself a slave to it in the sense of conscientiously sticking to it. Now drive yourself, and compel yourself to go ahead and do that which you have determined to do.

When I think of the old pioneers who walked and rode across this country to reach California; when I think of the many dangers, difficulties, and hardships that faced those men; when I see that they were living illustrations of this thought I am trying to bring out—I wish I had only time and space to give a definite account, instead of a mere synopsis of the kind of things they had to endure. They were surrounded by hostile Indians; again and again their lives were in jeopardy. Now and then they came to great sloughs and marshes, and their wagons and animals were bogged. They had to find their way across the dangerous quicksands; hard storms came and they had whirlwinds and floods to contend with. Now and again they found themselves in the heart of canyons, where there was no apparent way out; yet they went on, and on, until they either died or reached the land for which they had started!

A party of eighty set out to cross the great Sierra Nevada range, and the difficulties they encountered can best be imagined when I tell you that forty of them died on the way. The difficulties that beset the forty that were left made it all but impossible for them to get out. One of them told me about the terrible hardships they suffered. She said, "I remember, distinctly, when the time came for us to get away, my dear mother taking up the baby, and leaving me behind with the other baby. She said, 'Now, Virginia, you stay right here!' She then went on with the baby, and, after struggling step by step, in such a way that it would break your heart to think of it, for about twenty paces, she put down the baby and came back for the other baby and myself." And so, step by step, step by step, that woman with her three little children, started on that awful journey of scores of miles through deep snow. Fortunately help came to her assistance and she finally achieved. She reached California, though one would have thought it absolutely impossible. There was the tremendous insistence of the human will.

Let us say "I will!" and then insist upon doing the things we have said we will do.

I remember when I was a boy hearing some one recite something that I thought was very foolish. A little piece of "poetry" it was called. It was as follows:

I have since learned that there is a great deal in that "poem."