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Page 40
And we also select our own subjects of thought. Who can govern the
thinking of another? At the very moment when one, who is stronger, is
rejoicing in what seems his supremacy, our thoughts may be ranging
through the spaces, and finding companionships among the stars. And we
choose our own examples. In youth they were put before us according to
the will of others, but later our heroes come to us at our bidding, and
no one can shut the gates against them. Whom shall we admire? Let them
be men of the spirit, who have sought truth and hated lies, "who have
fought their doubts and gathered strength," who would rather suffer
wrong than do wrong. The perfection of being is the end of effort,
therefore we will read what will best help our growth in vision, in
moral earnestness, in spiritual sensibility; therefore our books shall
treat of subjects which will ennoble; our amusements shall be pure and
clean; and our chief companionships shall be with the prophets and
masters, the noble and the good, because by associating with them we
shall become like them.
Intellectual acuteness, mastery of faculty, elegance of expression, are
something very different from insight into the meaning of life. The
cultured man is he who has learned his relations to his fellow-men, who
recognizes his obligations toward them; and his relations to the unseen
and his duty toward it.
Discipline which will produce such results will ever be sought by the
awakened soul. It will be satisfied with nothing less.
The relation of nurture and culture to the ascent of the soul is now
evident. Both are the agencies by which all impediment and bias are to
be removed, and by which the soul is to come to the realization of pure
power. They are the means by which complete self-realization is to be
attained; they are the study of perfection. Nurture is what is done for
the soul by parents and friends in its plastic years; culture is the
means which the soul chooses in order that its growth may be hastened.
Nurture is chiefly promoted by lofty examples, noble ideals,--in short,
by beneficent environment; but culture is attained by the conscious
effort of the individual, by his own choice of healthful environment,
worthy example, inspiring companionships, and, perhaps still more, by
long and patient study of the facts of our mortal life, of the
revelations which have come from the unseen, and of the prophecies of
the future which are within the soul. There is a deep and almost
terrible significance in the text, "No man liveth to himself." Every
person is independent and free and yet is bound to every other. Most
delicate and vital of all human relations is that of parent and child.
How far one may be responsible for the other may be difficult to decide,
but that the one influences the other, inevitably and forever, is beyond
question. In many ways the child is what he is made by the parent.
Therefore the welfare of the child as a spirit, and not merely as a
body, should be a continual study. He who has dared to become a parent
can never honorably shirk the duty of nurture. The connection between
souls is a great mystery, but the mystery does not lessen the
obligation. We are responsible not only for the existence of our
children, but equally for their growth. It is the parent's privilege to
make sure that they start on the journey of life properly equipped, and
with no undue obstacles in their pathway--to make them realize that they
are not only his children but also children of God; and that they are to
live not only in time but in eternity.
The training of the body is needful, and that of the mind still more so,
but that of the spirit is absolutely essential to its welfare. Therefore
plans and provisions for nurture first, last, and always should be to
the end that the soul may realize that it is from God, and that its goal
and glory are union with Him.
And those who realize that they are free, that they are in a moral
order, that a noble destiny awaits them, should make everything in
thought, in study, in association, in companionship, bend toward the
perfection of being, the development of power, and the realization of
the life of the spirit. Nurture does much for every man, his parents
and friends also do much but, at last, when all mysteries are disclosed
and self-revelation is complete, it may be found that each one does
quite as much for himself as any one else, or every one else, does for
him.
IS DEATH THE END?
It's wiser being good than bad;
It's safer being meek than fierce;
It's fitter being sane than mad.
My own hope is, a sun will pierce
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;
That after Last, returns the First,
Though a wide compass round be fetched;
That what began best, can't end worst,
Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.
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