1928
CONTENTS
Chapter 1 – The Promise
Chapter 2 – The Golden Calf
Chapter 3 – The Four Keys to Success
Chapter 4 – The Forward Look
The Promise
“For the earth shall be full of lie knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” — ISAIAH 11:9.
WHAT was the greatest terror of primitive man? What, even in the golden days of Greece and Rome, was thought to be the wrath of God? What, right down to the beginning of the last century, seemed the most wholly destructive force in creation?
The Lightning.
Primitive man crouched in his cave in abject fear when the thunder rolled and lightning darted out of the sky, taking its toll of devastation and death. He might flee from his enemies of the jungle. He might overcome his savage adversaries. But when the lightning sought him out—that, indeed, to him was the wrath of God.
When Benjamin Franklin with his kite drew lightning quietly from the clouds, he drew out of them a lot more than a mere current of electricity. He drew one great dread from the soul of man.
For thousands of years this greatest force in the material universe had roamed the world unleased—the terror of mankind—a powerful Genii uncontrolled, loose in a land of pigmies. And all the while it stood there ready and waiting to be harnessed, lashing out impatiently at times at man’s failure to grasp the availability of this wonderful servant standing at his very elbow.
Just so it is with the greatest Genii of them all—the subconscious mind within you.
Through this spirit within, you can do anything right you may wish. If there is an unpardonable sin, it is to ignore or neglect it. For there is nothing right you can ask of it that it cannot give you.
Since publishing the first two volumes of this set, many people have written me that the ideas outlined in them seem wonderfully hopeful, wonderfully promising—but how can they know them to be true ?
The promises in them were made through Prophets, through Apostles, through Christ Himself—they are taken word for word from the Bible— but what proof have I that the Bible is to be believed? What proof, indeed, have I that there is a God at all—much less a Divine Plan that takes cognizance of such unimportant creatures as ourselves?
Well, let us see. Science is generally supposed to be at odds with the Bible, so let us see what science has to say about the question of a God.
Dr. Michael Pupin, Professor of Electro-mechanics at Columbia University, is an acknowledged authority on things electrical and scientific. Let us get his opinion:
The only mystery in connection with electrical science, he tells us, is the question of the origin of the proton and the electron. And that baffling question of when, where and how the tiny electron and its partner the proton came into existence can only be answered, he continues, by saying—”God created them.”
Dr. Pupin asserted that when man discovered the electrons he discovered the oldest and most efficient workers and the most law-abiding servants in the cosmic universe. When man learned how to employ their services, he caught the first glimpse of the divine method of creative operations.
God created the electrons to be His assistants in the creation of the universe.
The electron is the most law abiding creature in the universe; the most ordinary intelligence can manage it. It loves, honors and obeys the law and its eternal mission is to serve. It is the service of the electron which carries the human voice around the terrestrial globe; it carries the power from coal mines and mountain streams to our homes and makes us comfortable; it pulls our subway trains.
To teach electrical science as it ought to be taught, Dr. Pupin said, is to teach theology in its most concrete and intelligible form, It is the electrons, constituting an infinitely numerous host of law-abiding celestial workers, which the Milton of today can glorify just as the Milton of 300 years ago glorified his heavenly hosts of angels.
God employed the heavenly host of electronic workers to build the atoms, the molecules and the galaxies of burning stars. These celestial furnaces, throbbing with the blazing energy of the electronic host, are molding all kinds of planetary castings and tempering them so as to be just right for organic life.
Thus Dr. Pupin. Nothing at odds with religion in it, is there? It all goes back to the one great Source. Everything is made of protons and electrons. Everything consists of electrical energy. BUT—
Who Made the Electrical Energy?
There can be but one answer — GOD. What matters whether you call Him God or Nature or Mind or merely the Creator? So long as you ascribe to Him His attributes of all-power, all-presence, all-life and alllove—what does the name you give Him matter?
So much for the science of electricity. Let us see what the doctors say. They have taken apart everything that is in man’s body. They have analyzed all its elements. They know exactly of what we are made. But though they have explored every nook and cranny of the brain—living and dead—they have never found a thought, they have never discovered what makes it work. Just listen to what Dr. Charles Mayo, one of the foremost surgeons of the day, has to say: “Like the small boy with the watch,” he says, “we have taken man’s form apart and put it together again. But we are still hazy about the force that makes it run.”
Any great surgeon could put together the mechanical organs of a man. He might even, with the right electrical contrivances, force the heart to do its work; send the blood coursing through the arteries, the veins, through the brain itself. As a matter of fact, it was recently announced that a Russian scientist has invented an electrical device which can take the place of the heart. But the greatest surgeon in the world cannot make the creature of his hands live, cannot make it think, cannot make it work for one minute longer than his outside agencies propel it.
In short, man can put together all the component parts of any machine, even the machine of the body. But he cannot supply the soul that runs it. He cannot breathe into it the spark of life. Only God can do that!
So much for the doctors. Now let us hear from the chemists, the men who have analyzed all elements:
“There are about a hundred elements,” says John Gunther in The Red Pavilion. “When you finish listing the first eight or so, then you find that the second group forms a new series analogous to the first series. That is, you start over again with number nine, which is neon, and you find neon almost identical in properties with number one, which is helium. Both are inert gases. Andnumberten (sodium) is almost precisely similar to number two (lithium). And number eleven, which is magnesium, corresponds exactly with number three, which is beryllium. Do you see? Each group runs its gamut, shades from the one end to the other, and then repeats itself in an ascending order.
“I speak, of course, very loosely. But you must see what I am getting at. Anyway, when you get all the elements lined up you find them arranged in families both ways—up and down the pattern. Each element has a particular place in the scheme of things. Each element has its foreordained nook and cranny. You can’t move it. It fits. It fits there mathematically.
“Isn’t that superb? Don’t you see, it shows that all matter—everything in the world—belongs somewhere, fits in its place in the scheme of things. No one knows why it happens that way. No one can know. It just is. In a perfectly mystical way each element, and thus all matter, finds its position and stands there like a good soldier—for eternity.
“And that isn’t all. When Mendeleef announced the law some elements were undiscovered. The pattern was not complete. There are still some elements not discovered for that matter. But before the elements came to light Mendeleef was able to predict what they would be. He filled the gaps in his chart with hypothetical elements, and after his death these same elements, just as he predicted them, were discovered.
“I think that’s the most stupendous thing in the world. I think it is somewhat frightening. To think of elements of matter, unborn, so to speak, waiting for the day of their emergence, waiting patiently, and all the time, though we can’t find them, can’t isolate them, we know their names, their weights, their properties, even their colours.
“It is like a vast and thrilling battle. We on our side wait because we know some time that element must come out of hiding and take his place with the rest and fit in the supernal pattern which is ready—and on the other side the elements also wait, they hide deep in ore and crust and earth and defy us to prove that we are right, that we know better than they. They are unborn, but we know they must be born and finally they come.
“And all the time the pattern is complete and every unit—including the undiscovered ones—is at work.
“Well, now that’s why I suppose I must be honest and say I do believe in some kind of directed force which, if you want to, you can call God.”
Sounds like taking a long way around, of course, but the Science of Chemistry brings you home to the same goal at the last, doesn’t it? For—”Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this?”—Job 12:9.
Then there is the astronomer, the student of the heavens—of “the older Scripture, writ by God’s own hand.” To quote Young—”An undevout astronomer is mad.” And truly, the astronomer who did not believe in God would be an anomaly, for the Hand that can hold a billion worlds to their appointed courses must be nothing less than Divine.
“The heavens declare the glory of God: and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
“Day unto day uttereth sp eech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.
“When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers# the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained#
“What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
“For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
“Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands: thou hast put all things under his feet.”—Psalms 19:1-6.
More than a hundred years ago, an astronomer named Paley presented the case for God so clearly that I cannot do better than reproduce it here.
“I lay on the table before you a watch,” said Paley, “a complicated arrangement of wheels, springs, jewels, pivots, and balances, all neatly combined in a case and covered with a crystal.
“I tell you that the watch had no maker; that out of the bowels of the earth came iron and gold, and the elements of glass; that they refined themselves, fashioned themselves into springs and wheels and crystal, assembled themselves into this case, wound themselves up and started to tick, I tell you all this and you tell me I am a fool. You say that my story violates your reason; that the existence of the watch is positive evidence of the pre-existence of a watchmaker.
“And yet I show you a far more tremendous mechanism—a watch whose parts are planets and stars, suspended in limitless space, moving in unvarying orbits, each perfectly adjusted to all the others—and you say: ‘It is a mystery beyond our understanding. It must have happened. There is no evidence of an Intelligence; no proof of a Plan.'”
Your real scientist is in no doubt about the existence of God. He never questions it. He has as much reverence and respect for the Creator as you or I. It is your fledgling, your dabbler in science that is so cocksure that the Prophets of old, the Apostles—Jesus Himself—were mere tyros. He knows more than they.
“A little learning is a dangerous thing,” Says Pope. “Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring. There shallow drafts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again.”
Darwin never said that man was descended from the monkey. Read his Origin of Species. You will find no such statement in it. What he did say was that, from the study of all the facts known to science in his day, the conclusion that the monkey was a progenitor of man seemed to be a logical deduction. But—that was years ago—and science has made many new deductions since then.
“Ape Man Theory Now Discarded!”
That is the headline I read in the New York Herald-Tribune on April 30 last. At the convention of the American Philosophical Society, Dr. Henry F. Osborn, President of the American Museum of Natural History, branded the theory that man is descended from the ape as totally false and misleading. It should be banished from our literature, not on sentimental or religious grounds, but on purely scientific grounds.
“Of all incomprehensible things in the universe, man stands in the front rank,” Dr. Osborn concluded, “and of all incomprehensible things in man the supreme difficulty centers in the human brain, intelligence, memory, aspirations, powers of discovery, research and the conquest of obstacles.” In other words, something far higher than a monkey must have conceived the soul.
Science, in short, is back where it started from. With a little knowledge, it could tell all about man. But the more it learned, the less sure it became. Until now it frankly admits the origin of man to be incomprehensible—unless you accept the plain fact that as long as God was the origin of life, as long as He is the Directing Intelligence behind the universe, it would be no more wonderful—nor any more difficult— for Him to have evolved man complete and perfect as in the Scriptural accounts than to have brought him through all the different stages of development outlined by the scientists. In either case, we are back to the words of Job (33:4): “The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.”
Let us see where that brings us. Scientists are agreed, we find, that there is a God—though some prefer to call Him by some other name. They are agreed that He is the origin of life. The point on which they disagree is merely how He manifested that life—whether He created everything complete and perfect, or started in with the lowest form and from it gradually developed up to the highest.
Science and religion are not so far apart then, after all!
But how about the Bible? How about the Book upon which our whole religion is founded? What have they to say of it?
For a long time, many scientists had only disparaging things to say of it—that it was a mere collections of traditions, handed down from father to son through endless generations. That it was no more reliable than the Folk-lore of the Norsemen or the Mythology of the Greeks and Romans.
But for some years past, archaeologists have been excavating in Egypt and the Holy Land and throughout the territory covered by the Biblical records, and the facts they have dug up have established beyond question the historical accuracy of many, at least, of the Scriptural chronicles.
To begin with, there undoubtedly was a flood. The record of it appears in the ancient writings of all the Eastern peoples. Tablets of clay and tablets of stone, writings of wax and rolls of papyrus, all bear witness to this great catastrophe.
On a tablet dug from the ruins of ancient Ninevah by George Smith of the British Museum and translated by Prof. Haupt of Johns Hopkins University, there is given a complete description of the Ark.
Professor Haupt’s translation relates how Noah cut down trees in the jungle and laid the frame of his ark, which consisted of six decks, divided into seven compartments. After its cargo was taken aboard, Professor Haupt said, two-thirds of the ark was under water.
“For our food,” read Professor Haupt’s translation of the tablet, “I slaughtered oxen and killed sheep—day by day, With beer and brandy, oil and wine I filled large jars, as with the water of a river.”
Then there is the Tower of Babel. In Ur of the Chaldeas, excavators from the University of Pennsylvania uncovered what looked like a huge rubbish heap, but proved to be an immense pyramid temple, a staged tower 195 feet long, 150 feet wide and 60 feet high. To quote P.W. Wilson:
“It is what Chaldea meant by Babel. And a work so immense could only have been completed by a community politically united. The Scriptural statement, therefore, that the building was interrupted by a confusion of tongues—that is, by a divergence of race and culture—is rendered self- evident.”
The mosque of Hebron covers a cave which corresponds exactly with that grotto of Machpelah which Abraham bought for the burial of his dead. And it contains the ancient coffins of that patriarchal family. One curious confirming fact, too. The coffin of Rachel is not there. Remember, in the Scriptural record, how she died suddenly and had to be buried at Ramah?
The finding of Moses has been substantiated not only from tablets found in Sumeria, but an inscription discovered on a stone in the Sinai peninsula, on being translated by Prof. Grimme of Muenster University, was found to be a memorial from Moses to that Pharaoh’s daughter who spied his baby ark in the bulrushes, where his mother had hidden it, as related in the second chapter of Exodus.
“I, Manasse,” it reads, “mountain chief and head priest of the Temple, thank Pharaoh Hiachepsut for having drawn me out of the Nile and helped me to attain high distinction.”
“Manasse” was a synonym for “Moses” in the Hebrew of that epoch.
Moreover, there is corroborative historical proof that a Queen Hiachepsut—the name is also written as Hatshepsut and Hatasu— reigned in Egypt at about the time of the Hebrew exodus. She was succeeded by Tutaos III, who destroyed all her kindred and all her monuments whenever either fell into his hands. What queen could there have been in Egypt who had dragged a Moses out of the Nile, except that same Pharaoh’s daughter?
New light has also been thrown, according to an Associated Press despatch of Nov. 15 last, upon Old Testament scenes portrayed in the Books of Samuel and Chronicles, by excavations in Palestine of the University of Pennsylvania Museum expedition at Beisan. Beisan, you know, is the Biblical “Beth-Shan.”
A monument found there tells how Rameses, the Egyptian Pharaoh, put the Jews to work building cities.
The “House of Ashtaroth,” mentioned in I Samuel 31:10, within which was hung the armor of Saul after his death, was also unearthed, together with the flame-scorched walls of the fortress of Beth-Shan, where the body of Saul had hung, for which King David in revenge put the fortress to the torch.
If you were told that a six-foot seam of coal underlay a large tract of land, and you wanted to verify the truth of the assertion, what would you do? Bore holes in a dozen different places down to the seam. If each of these showed six feet of coal, you would feel assured that a six-foot seam underlay the whole tract
Well that, in effect, is what archaeologists have done to the Biblical records. They have dug down to them in a hundred places—and found a hundred different confirmations of their truth. More and more they are coming to believe that science, instead of being the enemy of religion, should be its greatest ally.
Even in the account of the creation in Genesis, there is nothing that need conflict with the latest discoveries of science. Suppose the world is a billion years old. Suppose man does go back 500,000 instead of 5,000 years. The days of creation are not days of 24 hours each. God does not measure time that way. “For a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night”—Psalms 90:4.
That doesn’t sound as though the six days of creation were supposed to represent a lapse of actual time less than one of our weeks. Still less does this from II Peter 3:8, “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
You believe in the Pharaohs, in Alexander, in Hannibal, in Caesar, in Cleopatra. Believe just as surely in Abraham, in Moses, in Elijah, in David and all the other Scriptural characters. We have stronger corroboration of the Scriptural record than we have of many great historical happenings.
And if you are going to accept the Scriptures at all, you must accept the most glorious part of them—their promises.
“O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires.
“And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones.
“And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord# and great shall be the peace of thy children.
“In righteousness shalt thou be established: thou shall be far from oppression# for thou shalt not fear: and from terror# for it shall not come near thee.”—Isaiah 53:11-14.
The Golden Calf
“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a p eople:
“And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.”—HEBREWS 8:10-11.
IN ANCIENT days there lived in the city of Sardis a King named Croesus. Croesus ruled over the country of the Lydians. He had conquered all of Asia that lies to the westward of the river Halys. And the wealth he had accumulated was so enormous that no man could even compute it. Gold and silver and precious stones he had in such quantity that they were stored like corn or wheat. Until Croesus reckoned that with all his riches to bulwark him, his throne would endure forever. He had gold to buy anything —even the favor of the Gods!
So when Cyrus, the King of Persia, became threatening, Croesus sent to the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi great stores of gold and silver, golden bowls, the golden statue of a woman and a great golden lion, thinking thus to buy the God’s favor. And made inquiry of the Oracle as to whether he should make war against Cyrus. The Oracle answered, safely enough—”If Croesus make war against the Persians, he shall bring to the ground a great empire.”
Croesus, thinking his gifts had done their work, immediately made all preparations for war. But the empire he brought to the ground was his own—not Cyrus’. And the first thing Cyrus did was to build a great funeral pyre upon which to burn Croesus. At the last, the Persian spared him, but ’twas the wisdom of the Greek Solon that moved him to compassion—and Solon was the man Croesus had driven from his court because of his contempt for its luxury!
So that all of Croesus’ vast store of gold profited him not at all. Like so many men you see around you today, he worked and schemed, gathering it together only for some one stronger or cleverer than he to take it away again.
You know how often you have seen people who had slaved all their lives, pinched every penny, deprived themselves of every pleasure in order that they might put aside enough for their old age, lose all their life’s savings in a bank crash or through some investment they had thought absolutely safe.
Why? Why does God permit such a malign fate? Why? Because they were putting their dependence not in Him—but in money. They had set it up as the idol which they worshipped, just as truly as had the Israelites in the desert with the golden calf. And the same fate had been meted out to them.
“And he sp ake a p arable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth p lentifully:
“And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?
“And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater# and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.
“And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years# take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
“But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast p rovided?
“So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”—Luke 12:16-21.
It is right and proper that you should be saving. It is right and proper that you should make reasonable provision for the future. But it is neither right nor proper that you should rob the present, which is all of time you will ever know, for a very problematical future.
To do that is to tell God, in effect, that He has managed pretty well thus far—with your help—but when the time comes that you are no longer able to lend a helping hand, you fear He will be powerless to provide for you. So you are going to put your dependence on man’s real friend— money in the bank.
“If I have made gold my hope,” said Job (31:24, 28), “or have said to the fine gold, Thou art my confidence; this, also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge; for I should have denied the God that is above.”
Gold has been man’s dependence for a good many thousand years. Let us see what it has profited him.
The American Bankers’ Association took one hundred healthy average young men at twenty-five, and traced them to the age of sixty-five. All of these hundred, mind you, had been imbued from youth—even as you and I—with the idea that during their healthy, productive years, they must lay aside provision for their old age. But what do we find?
At the age of sixty-five, five out of six were living on charity— dependent upon others for food and shelter! Only one out of twenty was able to live on his own savings at sixty-five!
These hundred were healthy to start with. They were average young fellows, some from poor families, some from well-to-do. A certain percentage of them died off, of course, but of those who survived, only one in twenty had justified his faith in the money god.
“For riches are not forever; and doth the crown endure to every generation?”
Seems rather a poor outlook for most of us, don’t you think? After thousands of years of sacrifice to him, if the money god can’t do better than that for his votaries, it is time we threw down the golden calf and set up a temple to the Father instead.
“But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches, in glory by Jesus Christ.”—Philippians 4:9
“According to His riches”—and His riches, all will agree, are infinite.
If you had an earthly father who was vastly rich, if you knew that in five or ten years you were going to be so crippled or diseased or infirm as to be unable to provide for yourself, you would not immediately start grubbing, saving and scrimping to lay aside enough to care for yourself during your decrepitude. No—you would go on with your daily round, spending freely for what was necessary, putting aside only what you could without sacrifice to the present. You would know that, when the need arose, your father could be depended upon to supply whatever else might be necessary to care for you and yours.
If any ordinary earthly father can be depended upon for this, don’t you think it is paying our Father above a poor compliment to think that He is less worthy of our confidence than one of us?
Remember the parable of the Prodigal Son? He had demanded of his father his share of the inheritance—just as we demand of the Father the meed of riches that go to youth and health and strength. And he had spent those riches in pleasure and riotous living—just as we do all too frequently. But then—instead of despairing, instead of pining away in misery, he had come back and thrown himself on his father’s mercy. And his father, greatly compassionate, took him in, put a ring upon his finger, a fine cloak about him, killed the fatted calf for him. Is there any reason to think that the Father above will do any less for us—if we throw ourselves upon His mercy?
“In my Father’s house,” said Jesus in the parable, “there is bread enough and to spare.”
Jesus did not come into the world to condemn it. He came to help it out of its misery. If He had purposed only to save souls for the hereafter, He might easily have done His preaching and His miracle-working for the rich and the powerful. Their souls needed saving far more than the poor man’s. They were subject to greater temptations. And who can doubt that they would have welcomed this great Wonder-worker to their midst— and made His path a bed of roses instead of one of thorns?
But Jesus preached His Gospel to the poor man, because it was the poor man who needed His help right here on earth. He invited the poor and needy into the Kingdom of God, which He told them was within them! He came that He might reveal to them this Kingdom, filled with the richest treasures of Heaven—health and happiness, riches and love.
“The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,” He assured us. And again—”Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.”— Luke 12:32.
His whole mission lay in discovering to us this Kingdom within. Throughout His earthly career, He kept referring to it continually. There are more references to it in His teachings than to almost any other theme. And lest we think it referred to some future state in the hereafter, he adjured us—”Seek ye not what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink. For all these things do the nations of the world seek after; and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. But rather seek ye the Kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you. ” —Luke 12:29-31.
Then where is this Kingdom? How shall we find it? How enter into it?
If you have ever been in a sailboat you know that you don’t have to supply any motive power to make the boat go. All you need do is put your sail in the right position to catch the wind. It is the wind that makes the boat go.
So it is with heat, with running water, with electricity. God creates the elemental forces. All we have to do is utilize them, put our boat or our water-wheel or our motor in the right position.
And that is all you need to do to find the Kingdom of God, to open up its riches—put yourself in position to receive them. Express your desire. Pray. Give what service you can. Then open up the channels with understanding faith. “Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for the Lord; that when He cometh and knocketh, they may open to Him immediately.”— Luke 12: 35-36.
“Prayer,” says Dr. W. F. Evans, “is the divine method of opening the soul upward to receive what God is more than willing to give.”
And prayer, as we know, is no merely mouthing of phrases, not “vain repetitions like the heathen do.” Prayer is the taking of our honest desires to God, just as we would take them to an earthly father, in the secure knowledge that we are His heirs, that all of good belongs to us and that we have only to ask in perfect faith in order to receive anything that may be for our good.
Even the pagan philosopher Marcus Aurelius sensed this. “If a thing is possible or proper to man,” he said, “deem it obtainable by thee.”
There is no want or limitation in the Kingdom. If poverty and lack manifest themselves in your life, the trouble is not with the supply—but with you. The abundance is there—but it is up to you to tap it.
What would you think of a man, owning a tract of land under which lay a vein of pure gold, who stopped trying to find it merely because his first feeble efforts had failed to locate the vein? Yet that is what most of us do when our prayers are not immediately answered, when our efforts to win health or riches or happiness are not at once successful.
How do we pray? Too often like the beggar asking for alms—doubting that he will get anything, expecting a rebuff, yet holding forth his hand in the forlorn hope that something may drop into it.
That is no way to ask the Father to give you the good things He has prepared for you, His son. How would you feel if your young son came to you that way, begging for shoes or coat or something to eat? You would feel insulted that he had not enough confidence in your love to know that it was a pleasure to provide these needs, that you required service and obedience from him only for his own good. Yet surely, you do not rate yourself as a better father than the One above? You don’t beg the sun for its rays. Neither need you beg God for His love—or for the evidences of that love. Years ago James Russell Lowell gave us the idea in The Vision of Sir Launfal when he said—”Heaven is given away, and God may be had for the asking.”
“Thou shalt make thy prayer unto Him, and He shall hear thee, and thou shalt pay thy vows. Thou shalt also decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee; and the light shall shine upon thy ways.”
To say that “thou shalt also decree a thing” doesn’t sound as though you were to take the attitude of a beggar when you ask anything of the Father.
If you were a great king and had many sons, which would you feel prouder of, which would you be more likely to reward with everything of good he might wish? One who cringed and whined and begged for every little thing, who grabbed each passing gift as though he feared there would never be another and even that one might be taken away from him, who mistrusted you and everyone around him? Or one who was proud of his high position, who knew that as your son he could expect all of good, and who, whenever a need arose, came to you with it in the serene confidence that if you thought it good, you would gladly satisfy it?
Then why act differently towards your Father above—the greatest King of all— whose “good pleasure it is to give you the Kingdom”?
You are not a beggar. You are not a slave. You are the Son of God!
“Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hand,” said the Psalmist. “Thou hast put all things under his feet.”
Dominion—decree— those are not the words of beggars or slaves. Those words refer to Lords of the earth. And you are one of them!
Manifest your dominion. Decree the things you want. Never mind what your present circumstances may be. Never mind what you may lack now,
“Man’s trust in God,” says Albert C. Grier in Truth’s Cosmology, “is measured largely by his ability to trust when he has no money. Trust in God is always in proportion to the amount of dependence we place upon the invisible—to the amount of poise and courage we maintain when there is nothing visible in the way of support.”
Put your dependence—NOT on the material possessions you have amassed, but in the Father.
“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
“But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,”—Matthew 6:1921.
From time immemorial, every generation, every year, every day has shown mankind how undependable are earthly possessions—here today, gone tomorrow. Fire may destroy them. Wind or flood sweep them away. Robbers steal them. But still we cling to them as the only security we know. Still we fall down and worship the Golden Calf, though that very minute may have proved to us how powerless it is.
A Room Heaped With Gold
When the last of the Incas lay a prisoner in the dungeons of the Spaniard Pizarro, he proposed to his captors: “Promise me freedom, and I will fill this chamber with gold. It shall be piled as high as I can reach on tiptoe, and I will fill a smaller room twice full with silver as well.”
The Spaniards promised, and immediately Atahuallpa’s couriers set forth. Over the steep trails of the Andes they raced, to the mines and treasure troves and temples of the People of the Sun. And soon there started a procession of heavy-laden Indians, each bearing on his back part of the golden ransom for the last Child of the Sun.
Gold to the value of fifteen and a half million of dollars they packed on their shoulders, piling the dungeon room higher and higher. And every back-breaking load brought joy to the heart of the Inca, thinking it meant one step nearer to freedom.
But alas for his dependence upon gold. When the room was almost full, and the Spaniards felt they could get but little more from him, they took him out and strangled him.
Contrast that with the story of Elisha, or of Jehoshaphat, or of Peter when he was imprisoned. “Hearken ye, thou king Jehoshaphat. Thus saith the Lord unto you. Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God’s. Ye shall not need to fight in this battle. Set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Lord with you.”—II Chronicles 20:15, 17.
That is where you have got to put your trust, if you are to be saved from sickness and want and a dependent old age. Not in the money god, not in the charity of friends or relatives, but in the love of the One who never fails us if we lean entirely on Him. Well may we say with the Psalmist of old: “My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from Him.”—Psalms 62:5.
What Then Shall We Do to Be Saved?
A certain rich young man came to Jesus with that same question. Jesus told him to sell all that he had, give the proceeds to the poor and follow Him.
And what did following Him entail? Service. Service first, last and all the time. “Whosoever shall be great among you shall be your minister, and whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all.”— Matthew 20:26, 27.
Giving away his money was not the important part. The service was the all-important part. For Jesus knew how hard it is for any young man who has come into money without effort to realize the service he owes for that money.
Often men have written me asking why they should leave money to their children, when more often than not that money ruins rather than helps them.
It is not the money that does the harm. Money is opportunity—for good or evil. The trouble is in man’s attitude toward money. Men who earn it honestly realize that it is the meed of service, the reward of work well done. And they strive to find still greater service that it may do.
But men who acquire it without effort look upon it as something made solely to contribute to their sordid pleasures. They feel no responsibility to any Power for it. They propose to make no accounting for it. It is theirs—and they are going to do with it as they please.
That is the reason money is such a curse to the sons and daughters of the rich—they give nothing for it in return. They worship only the Golden Calf. They put all their dependence in it. Is it any wonder they lapse so quickly into penury, until “three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirtsleeves” has become a proverb?
“Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy#
“That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate.
“Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.”— Timothy 5:7-19.
Jesus had all power. He could feed the multitude with five loaves and two fishes. He could call forth gold from the fish’s mouth. He could call upon the Father for anything He wished. He gave this same power to his disciples. And He offered the rich young man place among these.
But the man turned away. He had more faith in the Golden Calf. Rather than give up his riches and his possessions, he passed up powers far greater. He passed up rewards undreamed of. And who can doubt that most sons of rich parents, in like case, would do the same today? Why? Because they have more faith in the money god than in the Father.
In Ancient days there lived a certain King of Phrygia named Midas. Legend has it that he did a favor for one of the Gods, and in return was granted any wish he might ask.
Like most men to this very day, Midas more than anything else loved riches, and the greatest wish he could conceive of was that he might be able to turn everything he touched into gold. Given the same opportunity, how many men today would ask the same!
The Gods consented, though regretting that he had not made better use of his wish.
So Midas went his way, rejoicing in his new-found power, which he could scarce wait to put to the test. He broke a twig off an oak tree—and lo and behold, it turned to gold in his hands. He picked up a stone—and it turned into gold. He pulled a blade of grass—it did the same. He took an apple from a tree—immediately it became an apple of gold.
Midas’ joy knew no bounds. He hastened homeward and directed his servants to prepare a great feast, the while he turned all the dishes, the chairs, the table even the walls into gold. Then he sat down with his friends and courtiers to celebrate his power.
Imagine his dismay, when every piece of food he put into his mouth turned immediately into gold! Whether it was bread or meat or wine that he touched—no sooner had it reached his lips than it hardened into gold. To add the final touch of misery, his little daughter tried to embrace him—and at once was changed into a figure of gold!
A fairy tale, of course. But how much of truth there is in it! Men turn their thoughts, all their creative faculties, into the search for gold. And when they get it, it turns bitter in their mouths. They find that it has ruined health and home and happiness. Many a millionaire would cheerfully give all his gold for a good stomach, for the love of wife and children that he lost in his mad scramble for wealth. How much better the choice of Solomon than that of Midas.
“In that night did God appear unto Solomon, and said unto him, Ask what I shall give thee, “And Solomon said unto God, Give me now wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people: for who can judge this thy people, that is so great?
“And God said to Solomon, Because this was in thine heart, and thou hast not asked riches, wealth, or honour, nor the life of thine enemies, neither yet hast asked long life; but hast asked wisdom and knowledge for thyself, that thou mayest judge my people, over whom I have made thee king:
“Wisdom and knowledge is granted unto thee; and I will give thee riches, and wealth, and honour, such as none of the kings have had that have been before thee, neither shall there any after thee have the like.”—II Chronicles 1:7, 10, 11, 12.
For here is the greatest of all wisdom—that understanding, that service, bring their own reward. You cannot serve without reaping a commensurate reward. And not commensurate only, but heaping full and running over.
“Seek ye first the Kingdom of God.” Do you know what is the Kingdom of God ? The Kingdom of God is the Kingdom of Service. “And all things else shall be added unto you.”
You could easily give your young son every toy he asks for, every desire of his heart, and require nothing in return. Many rich parents do. But where would that leave your child? Greedy, selfish, with no sense of responsibility towards you or his companions or the world. A selfcentered youngster, of no value to anyone.
But enlist him in the Kingdom of Service and what happens? He takes a new lease on life. His interest is awakened. At once he is trying to find some better way, some bigger thing he may do. In short, he serves.
So it is with God and His children. He makes it necessary for them to learn to serve Then all things else are added unto them.
“And He said unto them, Verily I say unto you, there is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brother, or wife, or children, for the Kingdom of God’s sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come, life everlasting.”—Luke 18:29-30.
The Four Keys to Success
“Behold that which I have seen. It is good and comely for one to eat and drink and to enjoy the good of all his labours that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him# for it is his portion. “Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him power to eat thereof and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labour. This is the gift of God. —ECCLESIASTES 5:l8-19.
BACK in 1921, when Wall Street was generally believed to have at last gotten a strangle-hold on Henry Ford, Bruce Barton asked him what he would do if he went broke.
“I’d find something that lots of people have to have,” said Ford, “and I’d figure out some way to make it better and sell it cheaper than it had ever been made and sold before. I’d have another fortune before I died.
“Money isn’t important,” he added. “I can’t spend much on myself. Nobody can. There are only two things in the world that are really important—work and faith.”
Many people look upon Henry Ford as uneducated. Perhaps he is as books go. But in those few sentences he epitomized most that is worth while in business.
Whole libraries have been written upon the practice of business. Schools and colleges have been founded to teach it. But where in all the thousands of volumes printed on the subject, can you find its essentials more succinctly set forth?
- Find a need.
- Satisfy it better than anyone else and at a lower price.
- Believe in your work and in yourself.
- Work—with head as well as hand.
It matters not whether you are the owner of a great enterprise or the third assistant errand boy in the corner grocery. The same principles apply. In either case, it is you that is your business.
Men and money and factories and stores and offices are merely the tools of trade. They are your equipment. It is the way your mind plans the use of this equipment that spells success or failure for you.
And if the only equipment you have is your own hands and brains, then it is more important than ever (for you) that you use them to utmost advantage. You can discharge incompetent workers and get good ones. You can scrap poor machines and get better ones. But you can’t discharge yourself. You can’t scrap your body. So it is the more important that you use your powers to good purpose.
And the first thing to do is to look around you—and keep looking around— to find ways in which you can serve better. “I have six honest serving men,” wrote Kipling, “they taught me all I know. Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who.”
Promotion—success—comes for one reason—and only one. That is doing things a little better than the other fellow.
When Nurhachu, founder of the Manchu dynasty, planned to attack the great wall of China, he picked his strongest rival to lead the attack. Remonstrated with by his followers for giving another the place of honor, he silenced them by saying—”Victory demands the best available weapon.”
And after all, that is what most concerns are looking for—victory, success. Favoritism may rule in little things, but when it comes to important work, most executives will pick the man for it that they honestly believe best fitted.
“I will study and work,” said Lincoln in his backwoods home, “and my chance will come.”
Every man’s chance comes—not once but a thousand times. The trouble with most is they are so unready for it they do not even recognize it as a chance for them. The greater the opportunity, the more surely it passes them by.
“I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down.”— Proverbs 24:30-31.
Suppose the position above you were vacated tomorrow. Could you fill it? Could you jump right in and make good? Could you add anything new, anything better, than is now being put into the work? Or would the Big Boss have to pass you up because you lacked training, because you had failed to prepare yourself?
The man who is offered the big job is the man who has trained himself to hold it before it is offered to him. Don’t take chances on being promoted. Don’t gamble on making good when the opportunity comes. If you want a big job that carries responsibility and pays good money, get ready for it!
Pick out the job you want in the work you like best. Then start right now to get the training that will prepare you to hold it.
Prepare! Who knows but that it will be vacant tomorrow? And if not that one, then another just as good—with your concern or some other. Be ready for your opportunity when it comes.
And one of the best ways of making ready is to learn to do one thing at a time.
I know an executive who has just been let go by a fast-growing, progressive concern—and he hasn’t the remotest idea why. He had been with them for years. He had worked hard. But they dropped him and put a man in his place with not half the experience.
The reason? Not favoritism. Not prejudice. But the outgoing executive could never concentrate his attention on one thing at a time. He used a shotgun where business requires a rifle.
His desk was always piled high. He jumped from one thing to another, never finishing, never letting go of any. His mind was a turmoil. The new man has the essential quality he lacked—ability to stick to one thing until he finishes it.
Do one thing at a time. Concentrate your whole thought upon it. Only thus can you bring to your help the Spirit within. Finish it—and forget it. Then pass on to the next.
And in between times and all the time—study! Study first your own work. Study next the job ahead. But study always for the big job you are aiming for.
“So shall the knowledge of wisdom be unto thy soul. When thou hast found it, then there shall be a reward, and thy expectation shall not be cut off.—Proverbs 24:14.
In one of the interesting bulletins gotten out by the Ford Motor Company, there was this advice:
“Every man in this organization should be doing three things:
“1. Giving the greatest possible satisfaction on the job he holds.
“2. Preparing himself to fill the next job above; and “3. Training another man to fill his present place when he is ready to leave it for a higher one.
“When you have done one thing perfectly, you are big enough to try a bigger thing. Then is the time to prepare yourself for the bigger thing and train the man under you to take your place so as to free yourself when the opportunity comes for the job you are aiming at.”
Better Pay — More Money
One of the successful Correspondence School advertisements pictures a man and his wife poring over the month’s bills. “I simply must make more money,” he exclaims. “Yes,” she agrees, “but you never do anything about it.”
And all too often, that is true. There are more opportunities for good men today than there ever have been. The man with ambition has only to fit himself for bigger things, and if the opportunity to use his knowledge does not come along of itself, he can make it.
I know of a man who was sent to the penitentiary for life for killing another. For most people, that would spell the end of things. But his was one of those indomitable souls that adversity cannot down.
He learned to write letters—letters that would sell things. First he used them to sell the spare-time products of the prison workshop to buy little comforts for the prisoners. Then, as his fame spread, he began to write letters for business firms outside. In a few years his work was so well and favorably known that organizations with nation-wide membership began to appeal for his pardon.
Today he is free—holding down a big and responsible position— drawing a salary that few in his line can equal.
“Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings.”— Proverbs 22:29.
Just as the physician may read medicine, just as the lawyer may read law, just so may a man now read business—the science of the game which enables some men to succeed where hosts of others fail. It is no longer enveloped in mystery and darkness.
Take yourself now. You get more pay for each working hour now than you did the first day you worked. Why? Because you put more value into each hour of your time. You have developed your knowledge, your experience, your judgment.
Your value to your business is gauged by your ideas, and these come from your business knowledge and experience. If you enrich your own knowledge with the tested and proven experience of other men, you save yourself valuable time and the needless labor of studying out that which is already known. You avoid useless and expensive experiment. You make yourself a many-brain-power man.
Every man wants to get out of the rut, to grow, to develop into something better. Yet who is the man who wins promotion? Is it the clerk whose work is limited to his own routine of details? No, it is the man who has enriched his knowledge with the proven results of successful men’s experience.
How does a lawyer learn the law? Not by cramming his head full of rules and systems and routine. That was the old way—the discarded way.
Nowadays a man studying for the bar is given the salient points of cases that have actually happened, and then shown how they were worked out, where to find the law pertaining to them.
Admiral Lord Nelson used the same effective plan in naval warfare. He was a genius in naval tactics. But he was more. He was a maker of geniuses! In the great battle of Trafalgar, which put a definite end to Napoleon’s ambition to invade England, while the tactics used were Nelson’s, they were used not so much by him as by the Captains under his command!
These lines from an old book describing his methods (Jeffries’ Manual) might well be made the keynote for all business management, and set up as a guide for every man in business:
“It was not in greater ability to direct his ships in action that Nelson’s genius lay, so much as in this:
“That his method was to school his Captains in his principles of fleet attack and defense, that in the hour of action each might know ths mind of his Admiral without direct instruction from him. Indeed, no greater rebuke could Nelson administer to any Captain under his command than to order him to do this or to do that.
“Even in his final great battle, an engagement of such magnitude, confusion and violence as to stagger the imagination, signals were scarcely necessary nor but littls used ”
There is no limit upon you—except the limit you put upon yourself. You don’t need to worry about your rivals, your business competitors. Indeed, you should be thankful for them. If it were not for them, you would lack the incentive for effort and soon be as dead as a Government bureau. Without contest, without competition, you would lapse into a grind. Competition, difficulties, obstacles, are the alarm clocks of business. They wake you up. They make you exercise your muscles—mental as well as physical. Through them, you grow bigger and stronger, your vision is broadened, you are made to forge ahead.
Few great discoveries in science or chemistry would ever be made but for difficulties, obstacles. We see the end of one source of supply and we
fear it means the end of our business. But we work, we use our ingenuity—and along comes something better far than the thing we feared to lose.
In Advertising & Selling, Floyd Parsons predicts the time in the very near future when synthetic rubber, made from petroleum or some other cheap source such as the soy bean, will largely replace the real article. When wood will be so valuable in the hands of the chemist that we will stop burning it for fuel, thereby increasing the market for coal a hundred million tons a year. When artificial stone, or other composition material will be cheaper and no less durable than natural rock, and the furnishings of our homes will be made largely of bakelite, artificial leather and artificial silk.
He sees millions of dollars being saved yearly by substituting noncorroding metal alloys for copper, lead, zinc, tin and antimony. Furniture that is fireproof and resistant to decay being made out of resinoids and other wood derivatives, just as rayon, celluloid and artificial leather are now made.
Why, it is just a little while ago that someone discovered that the chip and wood waste which sawmills and lumber men have been throwing away or burning for so many years can be exploded into fibres and then pressed into boards or sheets in many cases better than regular hardwood boards!
Then there is oil. Oil underlay just as much of our lands a hundred or a thousand years ago as it does today. But it was never “discovered”— because the world was not ready for it.
“The simple truth appears to be,” says the Harriman National Bank in a recent advertisement, “that when, in the history of the world, it became necessary for these firmly-fastened storehouses of oil to be uncovered, they were uncovered. Nature had held them for untold thousands of years for just this emergency. The discovery of oil in the earth was one of the most remarkable and instructive revelations of the age. It has shown that, whenever human necessity demands anything of the world of matter, the demand will be honored. Nature has always risen up grandly to meet every occasion for new resources. After she has presented mankind with her gift, it is up to mankind to harness it.
We are treading every day upon the lids of great secrets that await the wants of the larger style and finer type of life that lie before us. Discovery has just begun and there is no end of it; yet the world is a thing to be weighed and measured. It is so many miles around it, and so many miles through it. It has more in it than humanity can exhaust.”
“Ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your hearts.”—Jeremiah 29:13.
And yet scientists are constantly worrying about the exhaustion of this or that source of supply. The fact is that we have not even begun to tap the resources of Nature.
Just listen:
Fifty years ago, three rabbits were taken to Australia, where rabbits were unknown. Forty years later, 96,000,000 rabbit skins and 25,000,000 frozen rabbits were shipped back from Australia to Europe!
We marvel at such increase. We use the skins and some of the flesh. But some day science is going to put that increase to real use.
Take the insects. Their birth rate is tremendous, many species laying a half million eggs in a single hatch. The sty-lonchia alone has a birth rate so high that if it were not for its almost equally high death rate, it would in a single week’s time produce a mass of insects larger than the earth itself!
As things are now, one of our great problems is how to annihilate these insect pests, just as the greatest problem with our rivers only a few years ago was how to get quickly rid of their surplus waters.
Now these surplus waters are largely used for irrigation, for generating power, for a hundred and one useful purposes. And the time will come when the vast reproductive power of the insect world, which now is such a curse, will be turned to some good purpose.
In the town of Enterprise, Ala., there is a monument erected by its citizens for services done them. And you could never guess to whom it is dedicated. To the Boll Weevil!
Until a few years ago, the planters living thereabouts raised only cotton. When cotton boomed, business boomed. When the cotton market was off—or the crop proved poor—business suffered correspondingly.
Then came the Boll Weevil. And instead of merely a poor crop, left no crop at all. The Boll Weevil ruined everything. Debt and discouragement were all it left in its wake.
But the men of that town must have been lineal descendants of those hardy fighters who stuck to the bitter end in that long-drawn-out struggle between North and South. They got together and decided that what their town and their section needed was to stop putting all their eggs into one basket.
Instead of standing or falling by the cotton crop, diversify their products! Plant a dozen different kinds of crops. Even though one did fail, even though the market for two or three products happened to be off, the average would always be good.
Correct in theory, certainly. But, as one of their number pointed out, how were the planters to start? They were over their heads in debt already. It would take money for seeds and equipment, to say nothing of the fact that they had to live until the new crops came in.
So the townsfolk raised the money—at the Lord only knows what personal sacrifices—and financed the planters.
The result? Such increased prosperity that they erected a monument to the Boll Weevil, and on it they put this inscription:
“In profound appreciation of the Boll Weevil, this monument is erected by the citizens of Enterprise, Coffee Co., Ala.”
Many a man can look back and see where some Boll Weevil—some catastrophe that seemed tragic at the time—was the basis of his whole success in life. Certainly that has been the case with one man I know.
When he was a tot of five, he fell into a fountain and all but drowned. A passing workman pulled him out as he was going down for the last time. The water in his lungs brought on asthma, which, as the years went on, kept growing worse and worse, until the doctors announced that death was only a matter of months. Meantime, he couldn’t run, he couldn’t play like other children, he couldn’t even climb the stairs!
A sufficiently tragic outlook, one would say. Yet out of it came the key to fortune and success.
Since he could not play with the other children, he early developed a taste for reading. And as it seemed so certain that he could never do anything worthwhile for himself, what more natural than that he should long to read the deeds of men who had done great things. Starting with the usual boy heroes, he came to have a particular fondness for true stories of such men as Lincoln, Edison, Carnegie, Hill and Ford—men who started out as poor boys, without any special qualifications or advantages, and built up great names solely by their own energy and grit and determination.
Eventually he cured himself completely of his asthma—but that is another chapter. The part that is pertinent to this tale is that from the time he could first read, until he was seventeen, he was dependent for amusement almost entirely upon books. And from his reading of the stories of men who had made successes, he acquired not only the ambition to make a like success himself, but the basic principles on which to build it.
Today, as a monument to his Boll Weevil, there stands a constantly growing, successful business, worth millions, with a vast list of customers that swear by— not at—its founder.
And he is still a young man, healthy, active, putting in eight or ten hours at work every day, an enthusiastic horseman, a lover of all sports.
But I don’t need to go even as far afield as that to prove the truth of Shakespeare’s oft-quoted maxim—”When Fortune means to men most good, she looks upon them with a threatening eye.” I know one of the best things that ever happened to me was to lose a position which I thought was mine for the rest of my days.
I had done good work. I had taken over a job at which six high-priced men had tried their hands, and failed. And I had put it across. I had succeeded. So I felt terribly abused when, in a reorganization a few months later, I was dropped.
It angered me—but it also woke me up. I went out and did for another concern what I could have done for the first one—just to show what I could do. But—and here is the thing that first concern saw and I did not—I had done one big thing. And I was inclined to rest on that. Like the soldier who fights one battle, I wanted to live on the glory of it the rest of my days. But the man at the head of that concern was like
Napoleon when an officer came to him and told him of the wonderful thing he had accomplished. “Yes, yes,” said Napoleon, “that was fine. But what did you do next day?”
Business is always in the present. A machine may have turned out wonderful work in the past, but when it ceases to be useful it goes to the scrap heap and a new one takes its place.
So it is with men—but with this difference. A machine, in the nature of things, is bound to wear out or get out of date.
A man need not. Every cell, every organ in your body is daily being rebuilt. Every eleven months you have a brand new model. So why should youth displace you? There is not a thing about any other man younger or fresher or more vigorous than you. And you have the vast advantage of years of experience, than which nothing is more valuable in business. Provided it is backed by initiative, by enterprise.
“Be not as the horse or mule, whose mouth must be held by bit or bridle.”— Psalms.
Age, poverty, ill-health—none of these things can hold back the really determined soul. To him they are merely Stepping stones to success— spurs that urge him on to greater things. There is no limit upon you— except the one you put upon yourself.
“Ships sail east, and ships sail west,
By the very same breezes that blow,
It’s the set of the sails,
And not the gales,
That determine where they go.”
Men thought they had silenced John Bunyan when they threw him into prison. But he produced “Pilgrim’s Progress” on twisted paper used as a cork for the milk jug.
Men thought that blind Milton was done. But he dictated “Paradise Lost.”
Like the revolutionist of whom Tolstoy wrote—”You can imprison my body, but you cannot so much as approach my ideas.”
You cannot build walls around a thought. You cannot imprison an idea. You cannot cage the energy, the enthusiasm, the enterprise of an ambitious spirit.
This it is that distinguishes us from the animals. This it is that makes us in very truth Sons of God.
“Manana “— Tomorrow!
But procrastination kills many an ambition.
The habit of indecision is responsible for countless failures. Every moment is a moment of decision. Form the habit of making those decisions promptly. Take care of these little questions that momentarily come up, and the big ones will take care of themselves. The man that cannot decide for himself is always subordinating his opinion and judgment to others. And his position naturally follows suit.
“The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves, if we are underlings.”
You have twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. What do you do with them all? Eight hours is enough for sleep; you probably work nine hours; what becomes of the other seven? Your future is determined as much by what you do out of working hours, as by what you do during working hours. I believe in recreation; every man should have it, and plenty of it. But there’s at least an hour a day that every man can study.
Some men are born forty-four caliber or more; some are born twenty- two caliber or less.
The first sign of a forty-four caliber man is eagerness for knowledge. If you equip the forty-four caliber man with organized business knowledge, he soon becomes a power in the business world. “Nothing is too small to know. Nothing is too big to attempt.”
But knowledge alone will get you nowhere—educated brains are as much of a drug on the market as uneducated brawn. It is the way you use your knowledge that counts.
Everywhere you turn you find some program for self-education urged upon you. One says—”Be a law student”; another—”Be an expert accountant”; a third—”Train your memory.” All these are good things in themselves, but without initiative, without enterprise, without the energy and the courage to start things, they are valueless. The best educated man I know earns only $25 a week. The man with the best memory I ever heard of holds down the job of coatroom checker.
You cannot build up a human being by merely cramming him full of knowledge or feeding him up on business facts. It is what he puts to active use that counts—not what he knows. The best education is that which teaches him a thing one day, and then shows him how to apply it to his everyday work the next. Education, in short, is in learning to DO things.
“Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? Prudent, and he shall know them? For the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them.” —Hosea, 14:9.
You can have anything you want in life—for a price. The first payment on that price is effort. Nothing worthwhile is ever accomplished without it. The rules for business success are simple enough.
- Get the Idea—the need you are going to supply, the service you are going to render.
- Learn the Method—study the best way to go about supplying that need, so as to be able to give the utmost value at the lowest cost.
- Keep your Faith—believe in yourself, in your work, in the Divine Plan behind it all.
- Use your Energy—start things, work head and hand to give the finest product, the best service you or anyone is capable of.
“There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. The liberal soul shall be made fat; and he that watereth shall be watered also himself.”— Proverbs, 11:24, 25.
There are 260,000 words in the English language, but they are all dependent on the 26 fundamentals we call the alphabet. There are thousands of businesses you can start, hundreds of jobs you can try for— but they are all dependent upon the four fundamentals cited above.
Men will tell you they never had a chance, that fate dealt them a poor hand, that they were so handicapped they couldn’t get a start.
What would you think of a baseball player who complained that the pitcher put so much speed behind his balls, or served him such twisters, that he never had a chance to make a hit? You’d laugh at him for a quitter. You’d tell him that was the pitcher’s job. You’d point out the fellows that knocked home runs in spite of all the pitcher could do. You’d adjure him to stand up to the plate and whale the next fast ball that came along with all he had in him. And if he was made of the right stuff, he’d do it!
Business is just as much a game as is baseball. You can get as much fun out of it if you go at it in the spirit of fair play, of do-or-die, as you get at a good game of ball.
The pitcher has difficult curves. He has speed. But some men hit him all over the lot. And you can too if you will stand up to the plate and put everything you have into every swing.
Don’t whine—”If so-and-so had done such-and-such, I’d be a big man today.” So-and-so is just a little extra twister the pitcher put on the ball. You have got to look out for a few of those. You never hear your Big League pinch-hitter complain that if the pitcher hadn’t put a curve on that last ball, he would have knocked a home run. Yet that would be no more ridiculous than for you to say that if fate had not put a few obstacles in your way, you would have been President of the firm.
That is what makes success worthwhile—the difficulties you must overcome to win it. If there were no obstacles, there would be no success, for everybody could have what he wanted for the taking.
Suppose Lindbergh had started to compare his meager equipment with the fine outfit and three-motored Fokker of Commander Byrd. Suppose he had become discouraged when his plane had difficulty in lifting from the muddy field. Suppose he had turned back when his weather reports proved unreliable, when his instruments failed him; when he ran into storms of rain and sleet where he looked for fair weather. Where would he be now? Do you think New York would have turned out en masse to welcome him? Do you think his name would be acclaimed the world over?
Nothing worthwhile is ever accomplished without struggle. No goal is ever won without overcoming obstacles. The important thing is to remember that back of all the toil and struggle, underneath the dust and the smoke, are the arms of the Father—guiding, guarding, supporting. Whatever you lack, He has. Whatever you need, He can supply. Whatever obstacle presents itself, the Father in you can overcome. “So near is God to man,” wrote Emerson, “when duty whispers low, thou must, the youth replies, I can!”
“The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him, to all that call upon Him in truth.
“He will fulfill the desire of them that fear Him. He also will hear their cry, and will save them.”—Psalms 145:18-19.
The Forward Look
“Trust in the Lord and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land and verily thou shalt he fed.
“Delight thyself also in the Lord; and He shall give thee the desires of thy heart.
“Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass.” — PSALMS 37:3-5.
THREE hundred and forty years ago, there sailed from Spain the mightiest fleet the world had ever known. Spanish galleases, Portuguese caracks, Florentine caravels, huge hulks from other countries—floating fortresses, mounting tier upon tier of mighty cannon—140 great ships in all, manned to the full with sailors and soldiers and gentlemen adventurers.
The treasure of the Incas, the Plunder of the Aztec, had gone into the building and outfitting of this vast Armada. No wonder Spain looked upon it as invincible. No wonder England feared it. For this was the Armada that was to invade England and carry fire and sword through town and countryside. This was the Armada that was to punish these impudent Britons for the “piratical” raids of Sir Francis Drake, Morgan and all those hardy seamen who had dared death and slavery to pull down treasure ships on the Spanish Main.
The iron hand of Philip II of Spain rested heavily upon the Netherlands. It dominated all of Europe. Now he confidently looked forward to the time when England, too, would groan beneath its weight.
But he reckoned without one thing—faith! He put in charge of this invincible Armada, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, a man who had no faith in himself, no faith in his ability, no faith in his men. And when he did that, he blunted the point of every pike; he dulled the cutting edge of every sword; he took the mightiest naval weapon ever forged, and deliberately drew its sting.
Am I putting it too strongly? Just listen. Here is the letter the Duke wrote to the King, upon being notified of his appointment to the command:
“My health is bad and from my small experience of the water I know that I am always seasick. . . . The expedition is on such a scale and the object is of such high importance that the person at the head of it ought to understand navigation and sea lighting, and I know nothing of either. . . . The Adelantado of Castile would do better than I. The Lord would help him, he is a good Christian and has fought in naval battles. If you send me, depend upon it, I shall have a bad account to render of my trust.”
He had everything to succeed with—everything but faith in himself. He expected failure—and disastrous failure met him at every turn.
One hundred and forty mighty ships—the greatest ever built. And England, to meet that splendid Armada, had only 30 small ships of war and a few merchant ships outfitted and manned by private gentlemen. Yet England, while alarmed, was yet courageous and hopeful. For had not England Sir Francis Drake? And Lord Charles Howard? And a dozen other mighty fighters who had met and bested the Spaniards a score of times on the Spanish Main? And could they not do the same again?
So said England, believing in her leaders. And her leaders echoed that sentiment. Are not English sailors the hardiest seamen and finest fighters afloat, they asked. And believed in their men.
The English had 30 or 40 little ships against the Spaniards’ 140 mighty men-of-war. The English had scarce two days’ powder aboard—so penurious was their Queen—while the Spanish were outfitted with everything a ship-of-war could ask.
But Howard and Drake were not depending upon any Queen to fight their battles. They were not worrying about the size of the enemy. They were thinking—”There are the Spaniards. Here are we. We have fought them and whipped them a dozen times before. We can do it now. So let’s get at them!”
They went out expecting victory. And victory met them at every turn.
From the Lizard in Cornwall to Portland, where Don Pedro de Valdes and his mighty ship were left; from Portland to Calais, where Spain lost Hugo de Moncado with the galleys which he captained; from Calais, out of sight of England, around Scotland and Ireland, beaten and shuffled together, that mighty Armada was chased, until finally the broken remnants drifted back to Spain.
With all their vast squadron, they had not taken one ship or bark or pinnace of England. With all those thousands of soldiers, they had not landed one man but those killed or taken prisoner.
Three-fourths of their number lost or captured, their mighty fleet destroyed. And why? Because one man lacked faith. Spanish soldiers were proving on a dozen fields that no braver fighters lived anywhere. The “Spanish Square” had withstood infantry, cavalry, artillery—then carried all before it. Yet these same soldiers, afloat in their huge fortresses, were utterly defeated by less than a fourth their number.
And the reason? Because they were a spear without a head—an army without a leader—riches and power without faith. Was ever a better example of the power of belief?
“The Lord is with you, while ye be with Him. And if ye seek Him, He will be found by you. Be ye strong, therefore, and let not your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded,”—II Chronicles 15:2, 7.
Men go all through life like the Duke of Medina Sidonia—looking ever for the dark side of things, expecting trouble at every turn—and usually finding it. They call it caution. It is really lack of courage—courage to try for great things, courage to dare disappointment and ridicule to accomplish a worthy end.
Have you ever sat in a train and watched another train passing you? You can look right on through its windows to the green fields and pleasant vistas beyond. Or you can gaze at the partitions between the windows and see nothing but their dingy drabness. So it is with everything in life. You can look for the good, the joyful and happy—and not merely see only these but manifest them in your daily life. Or you can look for trouble, for sickness and sorrow—and find them awaiting you around every corner.
Pessimists call this the “Pollyanna Age” and ridicule such ideas as this. But ridicule or not, it works—in one’s personal life as in business—and thousands can testify to its efficacy.
“The eyes of all wait upon Thee, and Thou givest them their meat in due season: Thou openest Thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing.”— Psalm 145:15,16.
Perhaps one of the best examples of the difference that outlook makes is in the lives of Emerson and Thoreau. Emerson’s philosophy of living can best be expressed in his own words—”Nerve us with incessant affirmatives. Don’t bark against the bad, but chant the beauties of the good.” And his tranquil and serene life reflected that attitude throughout.
Thoreau, on the other hand, was constantly searching out and denouncing evil. With motives every whit as high as Emerson’s, he believed in attacking the problem from the opposite angle, with the result that he was constantly in hot water, yet accomplished not a tenth part of the good that Emerson did. Like the man in d’Annunzio’s play, La Citta Morta—”Fascinated by the tombs, he forgot the beauty of the sky.”
It is necessary at times to clean up evil conditions in order to start afresh. It is necessary to hunt out the source of pollution in order to purify a stream. But it should be merely a means to an end. And the end should always be—not negative like the mere destruction of evil, but the positive replacing of evil with good.
If you have ever walked across a high trestle, you know that it doesn’t pay to look down. That way dizziness and destruction lie. You have got to look forward, picking out the ties you are going to step on ten or twenty feet ahead, if you are to progress.
Business is just such a trestle. And looking downward too much is like to make one lose his balance, stumble and fall. You’ve got to gaze ever forward in order to keep your perspective.
I know one great organization which went on the rocks solely because the man responsible for its policies lost his perspective by too much looking downward. Its founder had built it up to be the biggest in its line. But he had done it by keeping always one jump ahead of the field.
The man who succeeded to its management was put there because of his fervent reverence for the founders’ methods and ideas. And to this day he sticks literally and exactly to those methods of twenty years ago, never realizing that the genius who could build such a business would have been the first to discard those methods the moment they became outworn. “Remember ye not the former things,’ said Isaiah (43:18), “neither consider the things of old.” And that advice might well be posted in the office of every business executive over 45 years old.
Ten years after the founder’s death, all his great fortune had been swept away. The business was reorganized and millions more put into it. And still it is headed for the rocks, for the same Duke of Medina Sidonia sits at its helm.
While his policies last, there is no hope for it. But his policies, to the men back of it, represent conservatism. And conservatism, according to many, is the prime requisite of every head of a great organization.
Conservatism! How many sins have been committed in thy name!
Go back over the names that have made history—Genghis Khan, Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Napoleon, Nelson—was ever a conservative among them?
Was Washington conservative when he crossed the Delaware? Was Hannibal or Napoleon conservative when he crossed the Alps? Was Jackson conservative? Or Perry? Or Farragut? Was Foch a conservative when he sent this terse message to Joffre in the first battle of the Marne: “My right has been driven in. My left has been driven back. So with all that is left of my center, I shall attack!”
All the world knows the result of that gallant attack—yet the conservative thing would have been to retreat—and leave Germany the victor. Conservatism—it is the refuge of lazy men and cowards. When one is too inept or too lazy to go vigorously after what he wants: when one would rather let an opportunity slip through his fingers than stand up and fight for it, then is when he takes refuge in “Conservatism.” Conservatism let Lee escape after Anrietam, though he fought with a river at his back. Conservatism let the German fleet escape at Jutland, though even the German reports admit that they were all but done for. Conservatism withdrew the British fleet from the Dardanelles at the very moment of victory—when the Turkish forts were down to their last shell.
In peace, as in war, the maxim of Foch is the only safe one. “The best defensive is a strong offensive.” “Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.”—Isaiah 43:19.
The Things That Can’t Be Done
There’s a little poem by Edgar Guest* that exemplifies the idea correctly:
“Somebody said that it couldn’t be done,
But he with a chuckle replied
“That ‘maybe it couldn’t,’ but he would be one
Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it.”
*From “The Path to Home.” The Reilly & Lee Co.
Most of the world’s progress has been made by just such men as that. Men like Watt, who didn’t know that steam could not be made to accomplish any useful purpose, and so invented the steam engine. Men like Fulton, who didn’t know it was foolish to try to propel a boat with wheels—and so invented the steamboat.
Men like Bell, Edison, Wright, who didn’t know how foolish it was to attempt the impossible—and so went ahead and did it.
“For God’s sake, give me the young man who has brains enough to make a fool of himself!” cried Stevenson. And when they succeed, the whole world echoes that cry. “Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thy health shall spring forth speedily; the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward.”— Isaiah 58:8.
There is no limit upon you—except the limit you put upon yourself. You are like the birds—your thoughts can fly across all barriers, unless you tie them down or cage them or clip their wings by the limitations you put upon them.
There is nothing that can defeat you— except yourself. You are one with the Father. And the Father knows everything you will ever need to know on any subject.
Why then, try to repress any right desire, any high ambition. Why not put behind it every ounce of energy, every bit of enthusiasm, of which you are capable?
“I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.”— Psalms 121:1, 2.
Mahomet established a larger empire than that of Rome on nothing but enthusiasm. And Mahomet was but a poor camel-driver. What then can you not do?
Men repress their power for good, their capacity for success by accepting suggestions of inferiority; by their timidity or selfconsciousness; by fear; by conservatism.
Never mind what others think of you. It is what you think that counts. Never let another’s poor opinion of you influence your decisions. Rather, resolve to show him how unfounded is his opinion.
People thought so poorly of Oliver Cromwell that he could not win permission to emigrate to the Colonies. When he raised his regiment of cavalry, that afterwards won the name of “Ironsides” because of its practical invincibility, the old soldiers and the dandies of the day laughed at it. Seldom had a lot of more awkward-looking countrymen been gathered together.
Any soldier might have trained them. But the thing that made them invincible, the thing that enabled them to ride over and through all the legions of King Charles, was not their training, but their fervent belief in the justice of their cause, in their leader and in their God.
“Hymn-singing hypocrites,” their enemies called them. But here were no hypocrites. Here were men who were animated by a common faith that God was with them as with the Israelites of old—and that with God on their side, nothing could withstand them.
That was the faith of Cromwell. And he instilled that faith into every man in his regiment.
And while Cromwell lived to keep that faith alive, nothing did withstand them. They made the man who was not good enough to emigrate to America, Ruler of England!
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”—Isaiah 55-9.
Nothing worthwhile ever has been accomplished without faith. Nothing worthwhile ever will.
Why do so many great organizations go to pieces after their founder’s death? Why do they fail to outlive him by more than a few years?
Because the ones who take up his work lack the forward look, the faith, to carry on. His idea was one of service—theirs is to continue paying dividends. His thought was to build ever greater and greater—theirs to hold what he won.
“The best defensive is a strong offensive.” You can’t just hold your own. You can’t stand still. You’ve got to go forward—or backward!
Which is it with you? If forward, then avoid the pessimist as you would the plague. Enthusiasm, optimism, may make mistakes—but it will learn from them and progress. Pessimism, conservatism, caution, will die of dry rot, if it is not sooner lost in the forward march of things.
So be an optimist. Cultivate the forward look.
“The Optimist and Pessimist,
The difference is droll,
The Optimist sees the doughnut,
The Pessimist—the hole!”
The good is always there—if you look for it hard enough. But you must look for it. You can’t be content to take merely what happens to come into your line of vision. You have got to refuse to accept anything short of good. Disclaim it! Say it is not yours. Say it—and believe it. Then keep a-seeking—and the first thing you know, the good you have been seeking will be found to have been right under your nose all the time.
“For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater:
“So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”—Isaiah 55: 10,11.
What is the backbone of all business? Credit. And what is credit but faith—faith in your fellow-man—faith in his integrity—faith in his willingness and his ability to give you a square deal?
What do you base credit-faith upon? Upon hearsay—upon what your prospective customer has done for others, his promptness in paying them, his willingness to cooperate with them. In many cases you have never seen him—you can’t be certain of your own personal knowledge that such a person exists—but you believe in him, you have FAITH. And having faith, your business grows and prospers.
If you can have such faith in a man you have never seen, as to trust large portions of your earthly goods in his hands, can you not put a little trust in the Father, too?
True, you have not seen Him—but you have far greater proof of His being than of that of your customer thousands of miles away. You have far greater proof of His reliability, of His regard for you, of His ability and His willingness at all times to come to your assistance in any right way you may ask. You don’t need money with Him. You don’t need high standing in your community. You don’t need credit.
“Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money, come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”—Isaiah 55:2.
Then why do not more people “come to the waters?” Because they lack faith.
What is it makes a successful salesman? Faith in his house. Faith in the goods he is selling. Faith in the service they will render his customers. Faith in himself. Have you faith in your “house”—in your Father—in the manifold gifts He offers you so freely?
Men can sell for a little while solely on faith in their own ability, they can palm off anything that will show a profit to themselves. But they never make successful salesmen. The inevitable reaction comes. They grow cynical, lose all faith in others—and eventually lose faith in themselves as well. The successful salesman must have a four-fold faith—faith in his house, faith in his product, faith in the good it will do his customer, faith in himself. Given such a faith, he can sell anything. Given such a faith in the Father, you can do anything.
It wasn’t superior courage or superior fighting ability that enabled Washington’s half-trained army to beat the British. English soldiers were showing all over the world that they were second to none in fighting qualities. And the American soldiers were, for the most part, from the same sturdy stock. It was their faith in a greater Power outside themselves.
What is it differentiates the banker from the pawn-broker? Both make loans. Both require security. But where the pawn-broker must have tangible, material property that he can resell before he will lend a cent, the really great banker bases his loans on something bigger than any security that may be offered him—his faith in the borrower.
America was built on faith. Those great railroad builders who spanned the continent knew when they did it that there was not enough business immediately available to make their investment profitable for a long time to come. But they had faith—a faith that was the making of our country.
That same faith is evident on every hand today. Men erect vast factories —in the faith that the public will find need for and buy their products. They build offices, apartments, homes—in the faith that their cities will grow up to the need of them. They put up public utilities capable of serving twice the number of people in their territories—in the faith that the demand will not only grow with the population, but the availability of the supply will help to create new demands.
Faith builds cities and businesses and men. In fact, everything of good, everything constructive in this old world of ours is based on faith. So if you have it not, grow it—as the most important thing you can do. And if you have it, tend it, water it, cultivate it—for it is the most important thing in life.
“I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen.”—Isaiah 43 :20.
“If they obey and serve Him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, their years in pleasures.”—Job 36:11.
The End