The Book of Courage Part 2

Great lawyers were ready to inaugurate legal proceedings that would have made him a millionaire, and such legal proceedings would doubtless have been inst.i.tuted if the heir in person had not visited the scene of his great estate. As he dreamed in the nighttime about dispossessing such a mult.i.tude of people of their humble homes, he began to feel that, instead of such a fortune being a blessing, an estate received at such an expense would be a burden.

"After earnest prayer and sleepless hours in the midst of his vast acres, he was seized with the conviction that each member of this mult.i.tude of families living on his property needed it more than did the heir, and there and then he made up his mind that he would leave them in quiet possession of his estate."

The reporter who related the story said that the man had been called a fool, and commented, "He was G.o.d's fool."

Then he said that the incident he had related would have been unbelievable if it had not been so well attested. But why unbelievable?

Is it because of the common idea that "every man has his price," that it is unthinkable that a sane man would let a fortune that he could claim honestly slip through his fingers?

Perhaps it is true that every man has his price. However, if this snarl of the pessimist is to have universal application, the price must be understood to be--in many instances--not selfish gratification, but the opportunity for courageous service. There are men and women who can be won by such an opportunity who cannot be reached by any argument of mere private advantage. Such people silence the complaints of the croaker and command the confidence of those who are struggling to help their fellows.

Louis Aga.s.siz, the naturalist, was such a man. "I have no time to make money," was his remark when urged by a friend to turn aside from the important work of the moment to an easy, lucrative task. His reason was thus explained at another time: "I have made it the rule of my life to abandon any intellectual pursuit the moment it becomes commercially valuable." It was his idea that there were many who would then be willing to carry on work he had begun.

A contrast is presented by the famous inventor who, early in life, made it a rule never to give himself to any activity in which there was no prospect of financial gain. His first question was not, "Does the public need this invention?" but "Is there money in it?" Having answered to his satisfaction, he was ready to go ahead.

The world could not well have spared either of these men, for both rendered valuable service. But, judging from the stories of their careers, there was more joy in the life of the naturalist, who, satisfied to earn a living, thought most of serving his fellows, than in the life of the inventor before whose eyes the dollar continually loomed large. The counting-house measure of life is not the most satisfying nor is it the most useful.

That was the notion of Jacob Riis, of whom a minister who was devoting his life to the interest of young working men near his church once asked if such effort was merely thrown away, if he was pocketing himself.

"Pocketing yourself, are you?" Riis replied. "Stick to your pocket. It is a pretty good pocket to be in. Out of such a pocket, worked in the way you are working it, will come healing for the ills of the day that now possess us. I would rather be in such a pocket, working for the Lord, than in a $1,000,000 church, working for the applause of a congregation."

Those who are familiar with inside history at Washington say that the day after Garfield's election as President, a dispatch was sent to Milton Wells, a Wisconsin preacher, whose vote in the convention had kept Garfield's name on the list of candidates to the very last, asking him if he would become governor of Arizona Territory. Mr. Wells answered: "I have a better office that I cannot leave. I am preaching here for $600 per year."

There was once a man named Paul who might have enjoyed position and power, if he had wished, but he chose instead a life of courageous service of which he was able once to write, without boasting:

"In labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly; in stripes above measure, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my countrymen, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness."

How could Paul bear all these things? They were enough to break down a dozen strong men. Probably he sometimes felt that he could not bear the burden any longer, but always there came to him the a.s.surance of Christ, "My grace is sufficient for thee." Then he could bear anything; yet not he, but Christ, who lived in him. Thus his glory was not in his own strength but in his weakness, which made place in his life for the strength of Christ.

Until men and women learn how to gain strength in their weakness as Paul did, their lives will be unsatisfying, their days will be full of complaint. Their burdens, which seemed like mountains before learning to trust Christ, will be borne as easily as if they were feathers.

G.o.d does not promise to make us all dollar millionaires if we look at Him for strength in our weakness, but He does promise to make us all millionaires of faith and hope and courage. Paul was; we can be, too.

CHAPTER TWO

_THE COURAGE THAT FACES OBSTACLES_

"YOU may expect to spend the rest of your days tied to your chair."

Theodore Roosevelt's physician made this disconcerting announcement to his patient a few weeks before his death.

How would the courageous man receive an announcement like that? How would you receive it?

Let the words spoken in reply by the lion-hearted Roosevelt never be forgotten by others who struggle with difficulties:

"All right! I can work and live that way, too!"

Surely the triumphant words justified the characterization made by Herman Hagedorn of this colossal worker:

"He was frail; he made himself a mountain of courage."

At a dinner given to celebrate the worthy achievement of a public man, a guest spoke of him to a companion at table.

"No wonder he has been so well. Everything is in his favor: he is young, he is brilliant, he is in good health."

"In good health?" was the answering comment. "Where did you get that?

For years he has been in wretched health; many a night he was unable to sleep except he knelt on the floor by the bedside and stretched himself from his waist across the bed. But it is not strange that you did not know, he has said nothing of his ailments; he is so full of courage himself that he makes everyone around him courageous."

I

LEARNING

When the famous Sioux Indian, Charles A. Eastman, was a boy, his father, who had learned the joys of civilized life, urged his son to secure an education. "I am glad that my son is brave and strong," he said to him.

"I have come to start you on the White Man's way. I want you to grow to be a good man."

Then he urged his son, Ohiyesa, as he was called, to put on the civilized clothes he had brought with him. The boy rebelled at first; he had been accustomed to hate white men and everything that belonged to them. But when he reflected that they had done him no harm, after all, he decided to try on the curious garments.

Together father and son traveled toward the haunts of the white man. As they traveled Ohiyesa listened to tales of the wonderful inventions he would see. He was especially eager to look on a railroad train.

But even after he had gone with his father, he was reluctant to enter on his long training, until his father suggested that he make believe he was starting on a long war-path, from which there could be no honorable return until his course was completed. Entering into the spirit of the proposal, the Indian lad began his schooling at Flandreau Indian Agency, and persisted for twelve long years. After graduating from college he devoted himself to his people, and in many years since has accomplished wonders for them, teaching them the patience he had himself learned, and enabling them to understand that such patience and persistence always brings its reward.

The experience of Isaac Pitman, the inventor of shorthand, was different, yet, after all, it was much the same. As a boy he had little education. But soon after he went to work he made up his mind to supply the lack. The record of how he did this is one of the most remarkable instances of courageous patience on record.

The long office hours at his place of employment, from six in the morning until six at night, made study difficult, but he showed conclusively that where there is a will there is a way, and that he had the will. He was accustomed to leave his bed at four, that he might study two hours before the beginning of the day's work. Two hours in the evening also were set apart for study. Sometimes it happened that work at the factory was light, and the young clerk was excused for the morning. Instead of taking the time for sport, it was his habit to take a book with him into the fields or under the trees.

Thomas Allen Reid, in his biography of Pitman says: "One of the books which he made his companion in morning walks into the country was Lennie's Grammar. The conjugation of verbs, list of irregular verbs, adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions, and the thirty-six rules of syntax, he committed to memory so that he could repeat them in order.

The study of the books gave him a transparent English style."

His father was a subscriber to the local library. "I went regularly to the library for fresh supplies of books," Isaac said, in 1863, "and thus read most of the English cla.s.sics. I think I was quite as familiar with Addison, and Sir Roger, and Will Honeycomb, and all the Club, as I was with my own brothers and sisters ... and when reading The Spectator at that early age, I wished that I might be able to do something in letters."

Before he left school he formed the habit of copying choice pieces of poetry and prose into a little book which he kept in his pocket. These bits he would commit to memory when he had leisure. A later pocket companion contained a neatly written copy of Valpey's Greek Grammar, as far as the syntax, which he committed to memory. In his morning walks in 1832 he committed to memory the first fourteen chapters of Proverbs. He would not undertake a fresh chapter until he had repeated the preceding one without hesitation.

As most of his knowledge of words was gained from books, he had difficulty in p.r.o.nunciation. "His method of overcoming the deficiency was ingenious," his biographer wrote. "Again and again he read 'Paradise Lost.' Careful attention to the meter enabled him to correct his faulty p.r.o.nunciation of many words. Words not found in the poem he discovered in the dictionary. With unusual courage he decided to read through Walker's Dictionary, fixing his mind on words new to him and on the spelling and p.r.o.nunciation of familiar terms. On the pages of one of his pocket-books he copied all words he had been in the habit of misp.r.o.nouncing. Although there were more than two thousand of these words, the plan was carried out before he was seventeen."

The labor of writing out so many extracts from books led him to study the imperfect system of shorthand then current, and to develop the system that was to bear his name.

So many young people feel that they "simply cannot abide" the long process of getting an education; they give up when they are only a part of the way to the goal. But for most of them the day of bitter regret will come when they will wish that they had been more like Eastman or Pitman in their determination to be patient and persistent, to allow nothing to stand in the way of their purpose to fit themselves in the best possible manner for the serious business of life.

II

DEPENDING ON SELF

Young men just starting out in life nowadays, who find the path to success difficult, are more fortunate than some of those who struggled with hard times a century or more ago, because they are determined to make a self-respecting fight on their own merits. It was not always so; once nothing was thought of the effort made by an impecunious young man to throw himself on the generosity of one who had already achieved success. Then it was a habit of many authors to seek as a patron a man of influence and means who would help them live till their books were ready for the publisher, and then help to get the books before the public.

From letters of George Crabbe, a poet of some note in his century, asking Edmund Burke to become his patron, something of his story may be known. As a boy he was apprenticed to an apothecary; later he was proprietor of a small shop of his own. Business, neglected for books and writing, did not prosper. With his sister, his housekeeper, he "fasted with much fort.i.tude." Then he went to London, with a capital of nine pounds, and starved some more. Months were spent in trying to enlist two patrons. At last, threatened with a prison for debt, he decided to try a third patron; and this was his procedure, as he himself described it: