Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

THE LIFE OF SERVICE IS THE USEFUL LIFE

(Dallas News.)

HAPPINESS Comes of good, and good of loving service. The active life is the useful life if its activity be impelled by love for humanity. Confucius says that he who wishes to secure the good of others has already secured his own, which is confirmative of the epigram that the shortest and surest road to happiness is to determine to make others so. Cicero says men resemble gods in nothing so much as in doing good to their fellow creatures. The Ram's Horn adds this: "He is blessed already who plans to bless another, and he who would a curse bestow has already bestowed one upon himself." This thought is given further and beautiful emphasis by another: "The luxury of doing good surpasses every other personal enjoyment"; and it receives the stamp of inspiration in this eloquent but blunt statement from James, "Faith without works is dead."

What more beautiful life could one live than is the life of him whose course is directed in accordance with the compelling influence of love? He sees beauty and goodness in the world. "A good man will see goodness in the world, and the man of principle will see principle and integrity in the minds of others." He gets out of the world just what he puts into it. He is grateful for the ability and opportunity to perform deeds of loving kindness. The happiness of such a man is the joy that comes of service, of obedience to righteousness, of the manifestation of mercy and love. The Congregationalist says:

"The highest ideals of right living are wrought out only through service. No other success is to be compared with the success of a useful life. A life consecrated to the cause of helping those who need help, of making practical application of the teachings of Jesus, of helping to upbuild the Kingdom of Righteousness in the place where one lives is the only life that is a complete success."

A life of usefulness is the only life worth while, and it is useful in proportion to its service to humanity. Activity in self-aggrandizement, in the pampering of and pandering to the flesh to the exclusion of acts of moral and spiritual help

fulness is worse than idleness. Back of all right activity are ideals, the ideals which are the impelling stimulus of the individual, and his success and happiness depend upon the loftiness of his purposes and his activity and continuity of effort. Bronson Alcott says:

"Ideals first and last; yet it is not till these are formulated and utilized that the devotees of the common sense discern their value and advantages. The idealist is the capitalist on whose resources multitudes are maintained lifelong. Thought feeds, clothes, educates the population of the globe-all economies, natural, social, intellectual, spiritual, taking their rise in this stream of power and performance."

Some one has said: "I am learning that success is a matter of habitual concentration upon higher ideals." One must necessarily have an ideal in life, and this ideal must be his highest conception of the right life. If when he fails to quite reach his ideal in one matter, his regret may be mingled with gratification that what he did do was very much better done than it would have been without the ideal or mental standard by which he is governing his actions. There was never a useful and happy life wherein the oars were simply laid in the boat and its occupants floated down stream with the current. Such a one soon hears the roar of the cataract and knows that destruction awaits him. The oars must be used to steer the craft aright and struggle against the rapids before it is too late. The unknown writer who penned the following lines. has inspired many a loving deed and sympathizing word:

"I expect to pass through this life but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow-creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."

This recalls a splendid thought expressed by Robert Louis Stevenson: "When we look into the long avenue of the future and see the good there is for each one of us to do, we realize after all what a beautiful thing it is to work, and to live, and to be happy." The most eloquent sermon ever preached is a life well lived, and a life well lived is a life of loving service. Evidently it was such a life that inspired the beautiful little poem by Roberta Alice Moore, one verse of which is as follows: "If Truth I've shown to one whose eyes are blind,

If to the poor and weak I have been kind;
If I have loved my neighbor as I should,
For evil given sent him naught but good-
Then indeed I can lay me down to sleep,
Secure that Love divine the watch will keep."

A work of most timely interest is "The Wisconsin Idea." by Charles McCarthy, Chief of the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Department, and a member of the faculty of the University of Wisconsin. The reforms effected during the last few years in that State have aroused general public interest in the movement for true popular government and industrial democracy. The author is particularly well qualified by his experience to present the subject of the constructive legislation carried out in Wisconsin, which has demonstrated the practicability and utility of many reforms and political innovations previously regarded as more or less visionary and impossible of attainment. The legislation was, however, passed only after a long and relentless war with the opposing forces. Dr. McCarthy in his opening chapter says that "no one categorical explanation of the Wisconsin idea can be given," and he puts forth no dogmatic assertions, but outlines the difficulties of the problems that have been solved in Wisconsin by patient investigation and persistent effort. One measure led to another as a natural corollary so that the cycle of educational, political, industrial and welfare legislation might be complete. Among the questions legislated upon and put into practice have been State regulation of railroads and of public utilities; the adoption of the referendum and the recall; employment of experts to aid and advise investigating commissions; and the establishment of a reference bureau for the State Legislature. Wisconsin has been purged of much corruption and abuse of office and the State stands to-day as an example and object lesson of good and clean government. The fundamentals of the Wisconsin idea are the antithesis of Socialism, for the aim is to afford opportunity to individuals to possess property and to better their conditions by giving larger scope for individual efficiency and initiative. Former President Roosevelt, in a laudatory introduction to this book, writes: "All through the Union we need to learn the Wisconsin lesson of scientific self-help and of patient care in radical legislation."

The three chief problems in the relations of politics to business to-day are banking and currency, transportation and the

large corporations manufacturing and selling products. The first is the most important, because of its fundamental character. It transcends in importance every other business question. To develop a sound banking and currency system. in the United States today, that shall meet the needs that have been shown, through panics and otherwise, to have arisen owing to rapid expansion of business, the extent of territory and other causes, the more nearly we get back to the principles of Alexander Hamilton's financial policies, the better will be the system eventually adopted in this country. Whenever the nation has departed from the principles of the great financier who started it on right financial lines, there have resulted trouble and difficulty caused by experimentation. The problem of a bank and currency system should be studied in non-partisan and patriotic spirit, for its solution will affect the future well-being and progress of the entire peoples of the United States in their national and international relations. The Harvard University Press has recently published "Banking Reform in the United States: A Series of Proposals including a Central Bank of Limited Scope," by O. M. W. Sprague, Assistant Professor of Banking and Finance in Harvard University. The volume contains four articles published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 1909 and 1910. The first of these, "Criticism of Plans for a Central Bank of the European Type," has been modified by a changed attitude of mind on the part of the author who, from having believed a Central Bank to be unsuitable to American financial requirements, came to the conclusion on further reflection that a Central Bank is feasible in this country under certain conditions.

We recommend this book to those seeking light upon banking and currency questions. The author has done his work well.

There is today in the air so much talk of semi-socialistic lines that the American people are confronted with the task of finding answers to questions of great import to the future of the nation regarding the institutions under which it has existed for more than a century and a quarter. Many propositions in seductive, persuasive and attractive forms are being made to effect the change of a republic founded upon representative government into a socialistic democracy. A great deal of loose thinking and perfervid oratory is being placed

before the public, and fundamental principles and issues of basic character are in danger of being obscured by literary or oratorical pyrotechnics. Under these circumstances the earnest reader who is seeking light and guidance on the principles and practice of government will welcome a book just published by Charles Scribner's Sons, under the title, "Why Should We Change Our Form of Government?" The author is Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University, and the volume is made up of addresses delivered by him in recent years before commercial clubs, chambers of commerce and other bodies.

Dr. Butler deplores, and points out the danger from, the commercializing of American politics, and sapiently says in the Preface that "the distinction between the realm of government and the realm of individual liberty lies at the basis of free institutions that are to last." He pays eloquent tribute to the Constitution of the United States and to its framers and regards the independent judiciary as "the chief glory of our American system of government and its most original contribution to political science."

With a wealth of imagery and historical lore, Dr. Butler surveys the development of forms of government in the old nations of a bygone past; and he shows how the United States has received from England and Holland the fundamentals of a polity that is building up our nation.

The book is illuminated by historical references, philosophical appreciations and anecdotes that drive home the arguments made. Dr. Butler urges the substitution of a campaign of enlightenment for one of virulent attack and abuse, and opines that there is too much time devoted to talking on politics in its various relations, particularly to business and too little time to thinking. In illustration he tells the admirable story of Robert Southey, the predecessor of Alfred Tennyson as poet Laureate of England. "Southey was boasting to a Quaker friend of how exceedingly well he occupied his time, how he organized it, how he permitted no moment to escape, how every instant was used, how he studied Portuguese while he shaved, and higher mathematics in his bath. And then the Quaker said to him softly: 'But when, friend, dost thee think?" "

The problem of the Trusts looms large before the world, and the public mind seems at the moment to have turned

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »