Back Aa

Victorious Attitude

[Pg 268] <h2>CHAPTER XII YOU ARE HEADED TOWARD YOUR IDEAL</h2> <div class="blockquot">Faith and the ideal still remain the most powerful levers of progress and of happiness. Jean Finot. If we are content to unfold the life within according to the pattern given us, we shall reach the highest end of which we are capable. We tend to grow into the likeness of the things we long for most, think about most. The gods we worship write their names on our faces. Emerson. </div> In Hawthorne's story, "The Great Stone Face," we have an impressive illustration of the power of an ideal. One's memory holds a vivid picture of its hero, whose mind had dwelt from childhood on the local tradition that a man-child should be born whose face would resemble that of the mountain profile above the little hamlet of his nativity; and that this child would eventually become the leader and savior of the people. So whole-heartedly did he believe the legend, so earnestly did he long[Pg 269] for its fulfillment, and so constantly did his eyes dwell on the prophetic profile, that unconsciously his own features changed until, outwardly as well as inwardly, he completely embodied the ideal which his mind had absorbed. On every hand we see illustrations of the transforming power of the ideal. It is outpictured in the faces we see in the street, in trains and shops, in theaters and churches, wherever people congregate. How quickly we can select from a crowd of strangers the successful business man. His initiative, leadership, executive ability, speak out of his face and manner. The same is true of men in other vocations,—of the scholar, the clergyman, the lawyer, the teacher, the doctor, the farmer, the day laborer. Go into any institution, factory, store, or other place of business and you can quickly detect the nature of the ideals outpictured in the faces, in the expression, in the manner of the people you see there. Visit Sing Sing and you will see the power of the ideal which has worked like a leaven in its inmates. The criminal suggestion, the criminal thought, the criminal ideal is[Pg 270] reflected in the faces of those who visualized crime, planned and thought out its details long before they committed the criminal act. Whatever we hold in our minds, dwell upon, contemplate, whatever is dominant in our motives, will stand out in our flesh so that the world can read it. Many absolutely authentic cases of stigmata are recorded in the lives of medieval saints, on whose bodies appeared an exact reproduction of all the wounds of the crucified Christ. Some of these cases were in convents and monasteries, and were the result of long and intense concentration of the mind of the subject upon the physical sufferings of Christ. Frequently the phenomena occurred after the austerities of Lent, during which the monks and nuns had focused more intensely and steadily upon the tortures of the Savior's passion and death. If the contemplation of those tortures, the constant mental picturing of the sufferings of the God-man, the soul's great sympathy with its ideal could change the very tissues of the body, could reproduce on it the actual physical marks of the cruel spear in the side, of the nails in the hands and feet and of the[Pg 271] thorns in the head, think of the wonderful possibilities in the reversal of these thoughts and this picturing. Think of what the contemplation of the wonderful work accomplished by the Savior on earth, of the constant mental picturing of His glorious life, of His tenderness, and love for humanity, of His power and dignity, of His continual outpouring of Himself in service; think of what the constant holding of such an ideal, such a model, and the perpetual effort to realize it would do for the race! We tend to become like what we admire, sympathize with and persistently hold in mind. The hero of "The Great Stone Face" became the counterpart of his ideal. The history of Christianity is a continuous record of the power of the ideal to raise men and women to their highest power. St. Paul, one of the most conspicuous of these examples, is so possessed, so enthused by the inspiration of his great model, that he cries, "I live, not I, but Christ in me." "The contemplation of perfection is always uplifting." Nothing so strengthens the mind, enlarges manhood, or womanhood, widens the thought, as the constant effort to measure up[Pg 272] to high ideals. The struggle to better our best, to make our highest moments permanent, the continual reaching of the mind to the things above and beyond, the steady pursuit of the ideal, which constantly advances as we pursue, is what has led the race up from savagery to twentieth century civilization. A great artist was one day found by a friend in tears in his studio. When asked the cause of his distress, he replied, "I have produced a work with which I am satisfied, and I shall never produce another." It is said he never did. The inspiration that had urged him on was his ideal. That kept him always striving to improve on what he had previously done. Without it there was nothing to strive for. Without an ideal there is no growth; and where there is no growth there is retrogression. Without a vision the people perish. Nothing in the universe is static. None of us stands still. We are all traveling in some direction, either forward or backward. Everything depends on the ideal. What we admire and aspire to enters into the very texture of our being, becomes a part of us. If we had the power to analyze any[Pg 273] individual, we could tell what books he had read, could detect the type of his friends and associates, and could name his heroes; that is, we could tell what ideals had actuated him. Parents and teachers should urge upon the young the importance of hero worship, of choosing the highest human ideals. Our lives are molded chiefly after the pattern of the ideals of our youth, and there is no danger of too much hero worship, if only the heroes are worthy. History is full of examples of the powerful influence of ideals upon our great men. It is said that Alexander the Great always carried a copy of Homer's "Iliad" in his pocket, and that he never tired of reading about Achilles, the great hero, whom he was ambitious to resemble. Many a young man in this country who has been inspired, encouraged and stimulated by Lincoln's career, has not only lived a grander life and made a truer success because he modeled his life after that of his hero, but he has developed many qualities in common with Lincoln which otherwise might have lain forever dormant. Many a young officer in our army is more efficient because of his imita[Pg 274]tion of Grant and Lee, the ideals which haunted his dreams and which have ever urged him up and on. It is of the utmost importance to choose our ideal early in life, a high and beautiful ideal, that shall be our pole star, the highest, brightest light we know. A recent writer says: "My advice to all those just starting to travel life's turnpike is: "'Don't start until you have your ideal. Then don't stop until you get it.'" Of course we all have ideals of some kind when we are young; but how many of us keep them even till middle age? What young man has entered into active life without an ideal before him of what he is going to do, and how the world is going to be bettered by him? What young girl but who, leaving school, life smiling before her, dreams of the ideal love she will find, the ideal happy home she will make, and the beautiful work she will do in life with the ideal man of her girlish dreams by her side? But do the youth and the maiden hold these ideals throughout the years, with the[Pg 275] strength of conviction that overcomes all difficulties, or do they abandon them with the first discouragement and settle down into a commonplace existence with interest in nothing above the material? To youth, naturally, come glorious ideals, not only of what one's own life is to be, but of what life in general should be,—the ideal man, the ideal woman, the ideal social system,—and with all these is a vague desire or intention to help toward their fulfillment. But too often the result of disappointment in the effort to better conditions is, first, to give up the hope of realizing the ideal, and then to abandon the ideal itself. Here is where the great danger of retrogression comes in. Unless the ideal be held with a tenacity that no failure or disappointment can relax, it is apt to fade away after the first ardor of youth is past. One of the greatest aids to the preservation of the youthful ideal in all its freshness and beauty is to recall frequently, daily, the moral heroes who first gave one a glimpse of one's possibilities and aroused one's ambition. Read the special books, or particular chapters which fired you to emulate some noble char[Pg 276]acter. Renew yourself mentally by visualizing the life and work of men and women who have wrought nobly for humanity. Think of the Washingtons, the Franklins, the Lincolns, the Emersons, the Ruskins, the Florence Nightingales, the Jane Addams, the Susan B. Anthonys, the Frances Willards, and you will be strengthened to resist the debasing influence of the fierce competition for wealth and preferment, even for mere subsistence, which in so many instances pushes out of sight the aspirations and ideals of youth. Keep constantly in mind the grand characters whose achievements aroused you to noble thoughts and endeavor in the springtime of life and your standards will never drop. Character always develops according to the pattern within us. No artist could paint the face of Christ with the model of Judas before his mental vision. No great character can ever be built with low, groveling ideals in the mind. The constant struggle to measure up to a high ideal is the only force in heaven or on earth that can make a life great, beautiful and fruitful. If we would ever accomplish anything of worth, if we would ever establish our[Pg 277] oneness with the Creator, and accomplish the work He sent us here to do, we must live up to our ideal. With eyes fixed on this ideal, we must work with heart and hand and brain; with a faith that never grows dim, with a resolution that never wavers, with a patience that is akin to genius, we must persevere unto the end; for, as we advance, our ideal as steadily moves upward. "The situation that has not its duty, its ideal," says Carlyle, "was never yet occupied by man. Yes, here, in this poor, miserable, hampered, despicable Actual, wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy ideal; work it out therefrom, and, working, believe, live, be free. Fool! the ideal is in thyself." Never were truer words spoken. Wrapped up in every human being there are divine energies which, if given proper direction, will develop the ideal from stage to stage. Who sees a sculptor at work upon a block of marble sees what appears to be only a mechanical performance. But, out of sight in the sculptor's brain, there is a quiet presence we do not perceive;[Pg 278] and every movement of the hand is impelled by that shining thought within the brain. That presence is the ideal. Without it he would be a mason; through it he becomes an artist. "The ideal is the real." By it we shape our lives as the sculptor shapes the image from the rough marble. External means alone will not accomplish this. You must lay hold of eternal principles, of the everlasting verities, or you never can approach your ideal. Your first advance toward it lies in what you are doing now, in what you are thinking. Not on some far-off height, in some distant scene, or fabled land, where longing without endeavor is magically satisfied, will we carve out the ideal that haunts our souls, but "here and now in this poor, mean Actual, here or nowhere is our ideal!" In the humble valley, on the boundless prairie, on the farm, on sea or on land, in workshop, store, or office, wherever there is honest work for the hand and brain of man to do,—within the circumscribed limits of our daily duties, is the field wherein the outworking of our ideal must be wrought.[Pg 279] "Your circumstances may be uncongenial," says James Allen, "but they shall not long remain so if you but perceive an Ideal and strive to reach it. You cannot travel within and stand still without. Here is a youth hard pressed by poverty and labor; confined long hours in an unhealthy workshop; unschooled, and lacking all the arts of refinement. But he dreams of better things; he thinks of intelligence, of refinement, of grace and beauty. He conceives of, mentally builds up, an ideal condition of life; the vision of a wider liberty and a larger scope takes possession of him; unrest urges him to action, and he utilizes all his spare time and means, small though they are, to the development of his latent powers and resources. Very soon so altered has his mind become that the workshop can no longer hold him. It has become so out of harmony with his mentality that it falls out of his life as a garment is cast aside, and, with the growth of opportunities which fit the scope of his expanding powers, he passes out of it forever. Years later we see this youth as a full-grown man. We find him a master of certain forces of the mind which he wields with[Pg 280] world-wide influence and almost unequaled power. In his hands he holds the cords of gigantic responsibilities; he speaks, and lo! lives are changed; men and women hang upon his words and remold their characters, and, sun-like, he becomes the fixed and luminous center round which innumerable destinies revolve. He has realized the Vision of his youth. He has become one with his Ideal." The great curse of the average person is commonness,—the lack of aspiring ideals. There are thousands of farmers who never get above cattle and wheat, of doctors who never become superior to prescriptions and diseases, of lawyers who never wholly subordinate their briefs. The ideals of the masses rarely rise out of mediocrity. Most of us live in the basement of our lives, while the upper stories are all unused. Millions of human beings never get out of the kitchen of their existence. We need aspiration and great thought-models to lift us. God has whispered into the ear of all existence, "Look up." There is potential celestial gravitation in every mortal. There is a spiritual hunger in humanity which, if fed and[Pg 281] nourished, will lead to the upbuilding and developing of great souls. There is a latent divinity in every son of Adam, which must be aroused before there can be any great progress in individual uplift. In a factory where mariners' compasses are made before the needles are magnetized, they will lie in any position, but when once touched by the mighty magnet, once electrified by that mysterious power, they ever afterwards point only in one direction. Many a young life lies listless, purposeless, until touched by the Divine magnet, after which, if it nourishes its aspirations, it always points to the north star of its hope and its ideal. Every faintest aspiration that springs up in our heart is a heavenly seed within us which will grow and develop into rich beauty if only it be fed, encouraged. The better things do not grow either in material or mental soil without care and nourishment. Only weeds, briers, and noxious plants thrive easily. The aspiration that is not translated into active effort will die, just as any power or function that is not used will atrophy or disappear. The ostrich, naturalists say, once had wonder[Pg 282]ful wings, but not caring to use them, preferring to walk on the earth rather than mount in the air, it practically lost its wings, their strength passing into its legs. The giraffe probably once had only an ordinary neck, like other animals, but being long used to reach up to gather its food from the branches of trees, it lifted its body in the upward direction until it is now the tallest of all animals, its elongated neck enabling it to gather the leaves from lofty trees. Something like this takes place continually in human lives. We rise or fall by our ideals, by our pursuit or our disregard of them. The majority of us make bungling work of our living. We spend much precious time and effort catering to the desires of our animal natures and live chiefly along the lines of life's lower aims and opportunities when we might be soaring. Everywhere we see men making a splendid living, but a very poor life; succeeding in their vocations but failing as men, swerving from their own highest ideals for the sake of making a little more money. On every hand we see people sacrificing the higher to the lower,[Pg 283] dwarfing the best thing in them for a superficial material advantage, selling the birthright of the soul's ideal for a mess of pottage. Is there any reason or intelligence in a man's continuing to turn his ability, his energies, all there is in him, into dollars after he has many times more of these than he can ever use for living and betterment? Is the gift of life so cheap, so meaningless, of so little importance, that we can afford to spend time on things that do not endure,—upon unnecessary material things which so soon pass away,—to the neglect of those that endure? We know that life is our great opportunity to acquit ourselves like men. Yet it is too often into these transient things that we pour the full force of our energies, while we only sigh and "wish" that we could achieve our ideals. We sacrifice much to gain wealth, but practically nothing to realize the outreach of our souls. Yet the ideal is indeed the "pearl of great price," in the balance with which "all that a man hath" besides is as nothing. The red letter men of the world have always been men of high ideals, to which they were ever loyal: men who have said "this one thing I do," and have[Pg 284] put the whole strength of their lives into their effort to realize their ideal. If from the start you listen to and obey that something within which urges you to find the road that leads up higher; if you listen to and obey the voice which bids you look up and not down, which ever calls you on and up, no matter what its outward seeming, your life can not be a failure. The really successful men and women are those who by the nobility of their example contribute to the uplift, the happiness, the enlargement of life, to the wisdom of the world,—not those who have merely piled up selfish dollars. A rich personality enriches everybody who comes in contact with it. Everybody who touches a noble life feels ennobled thereby. There is machinery so delicate that it can measure the least expenditure of physical force. If similar machinery could be devised for measuring character many a millionaire would be chagrined at the record of his own just measurement, while many an humble worker would be amazed at the high mark his earnest unceasing efforts to reach his ideal had achieved.[Pg 285] I believe the time will come when not money, but growth, not lands and houses, but mental and moral expansion in larger and nobler living, will be even the popular measure of true riches, real success. The measure of a successful man will be that of his soul; he will be rated in a new sort of Bradstreet, a spiritual Bradstreet, as a large heart, a magnanimous mind, a cultured intellect, instead of as a great check book. Phillips Brooks said: "The ideal life of full completion haunts us all. We feel the thing we ought to be beating beneath the thing we are. God hides some ideal in every human soul. At some time in his life, each feels a trembling, fearful longing to do some great good thing. Life finds its noblest spring of excellence in its hidden impulse to do one's best." Every one who substitutes the finer for the cheaper goal, each one who to-day and every day holds to his high ideal despite the stress and turmoil of modern daily living, in such measure hastens the day when such an ideal will be the inspiration of the masses and the power that moves the world. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.