Read Ebook: Living for the Best by McClure James G K James Gore King

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The difficulty of his position was great: to breathe malaria and not be affected by it. He was in the whirl of worldliness and still he must not be made dizzy thereby. His one resource for safety was his daily consideration of the commands of God. Those commands charged men to be upright, to be clean, to do duty faithfully, even though it was duty to a heathen master, and to make life serviceable to the welfare of others. Again and again all through the years of his exile it was necessary for his soul's welfare that he should ponder these commands of God and not let the atmosphere that surrounded him lower and destroy his ideals.

On that day when the unalterable decree was issued Daniel was in imminent and unescapable peril. Jealous officers already rejoiced in his anticipated death. The danger of weakening threatened his heart. He remembered that Abraham once in Egypt surrendered his principles and thereby saved his life; that the Gibeonites once falsified and so preserved themselves alive. He might have reasoned, "Why should not I, in this special matter, yield, and give up recognition of Jehovah until the storm of persecution is past?" He could easily say, "Perhaps I am making too much of this whole subject; what difference will there be if I, away off here in Babylon, hundreds of miles from home, call this a case of expediency, and temporarily relinquish my ideals?" The temptation was a fearful one. Many a man has gone down before it. Cranmer did, Pilate did; but not Daniel. He kept his eyes on God's commands--those commands that told him to do the right and scorn the consequences, those commands that told him that faithfulness to principle, though it ended in martyrdom, was essential to place in God's hero list. He remembered Joseph, who would not sin against God in doing evil. He remembered God, that bade him bear his testimony, sealing it if necessary with his life's blood. So remembering he kept the faith and proved invincible.

Many a man, like Daniel, exposed to a peculiar temptation, has been made brave as he has remembered the standards set for him by another. He has thought of the wife perhaps, who charged him to meet his duties as a man of God, though godliness should involve them both in disgrace, and thus thinking he has stood firm before evil. Or as a youth, away from home, in a school or factory, with deteriorating influences all about him, and his feet well-nigh gone from the ways of uprightness, he has turned his heart toward that mother who would rather have him die than be false, and the remembrance of her has roused his self-assertion and made him master of the environment.

But what an hour of need that was when he was tracked to his upper room! Every power in the great Medo-Persian Empire was arrayed against him. No friend, no helper, was at hand. He stood alone before his fearful crisis. Brave and determined as his spirit might be, he was still a man--a man of flesh and blood. He needed strength: needed, as Christ afterward in Gethsemane needed, supporting and encouraging sympathy. He turned his soul toward the promises of God's protection and help. He let those promises flood his heart. Those promises made his will like adamant.

We do well when we front our hearts to God's promises. Every earnest soul, trying to make this world better, meets severe discouragements. Then let the soul open itself to God's assurance that the ends of the earth are given to Christ and that good shall indeed come off victorious. Every weak soul struggling to subdue its sin comes to hours of weariness. Then let the soul open itself to God's assurance that He giveth power to the faint and to them that have no might He increaseth strength. Every sorrowing soul, sighing for the loved and the lost, has days of loneliness. Then let the soul open itself to God's assurance that life and immortality are brought to light in Jesus Christ. Only as the needy world of humanity opens its heart to God's promises can it walk in light and possess the peace that passeth understanding.

It is a blessed, very blessed, way to live, this way of keeping our hearts open to the best. We all can so live. We can have a secret chamber--a very closet of the soul--into which we can go, whether we are with the multitude or are alone; and if through the broadly opened windows of that closet we look out toward the best--distant as that best may seem--back from the best will come the light that never fails and the strength that never breaks.

WINNING THE BEST VICTORIES.

WINNING THE BEST VICTORIES.

Success in life is determined by the victories we win. Only he who triumphs over obstacles is a successful man.

There are as many kinds of victory as there are kinds of obstacles. Some kinds of obstacles call upon us for the use of our secondary powers, and some for the use of our primary powers. When the obstacles bring into play the very best powers of our natures, and those powers conquer the obstacles, then we win our best victories.

David is a most interesting illustration of the winning of victories. The Bible evidently considers him one of its greatest heroes. While it gives eleven chapters to Jacob and fourteen chapters to Abraham, it gives sixty-one chapters to David. It thus asks us to pay great heed to the story and lessons of David's life.

Almost our first introduction to David represents him in a fight. He is a mere shepherd lad, out in the wilderness, perhaps miles from another human being, when a lion springs forth and seizes a lamb from the flock he is guarding. It was a fearsome hour for a boy. He might have deserted the flock and fled, preserving himself. But not so. He faced the lion. He even attacked the lion. He wrested the lamb from its mouth, and he slew the lion. Again, when, under similar circumstances, a beast of another kind, a bear, laid hold of a lamb, David stood up to the danger, and with such weapons of club and knife as he had, fought the bear to its death.

Some years ago in Alaska, in a house hundreds of miles from any other white man's home, I saw a bearskin lying upon the sitting-room floor. The son of the house, out hunting, had suddenly come upon a bear, that rose up within a few feet of his face. The boy lifted his gun, shot, aiming at the bear's heart, and then, trembling with terror, ran for home. The next day the boy's father took associates to the spot, found the body of the bear, and brought the skin home as a trophy of the boy's skill and pluck. And a trophy it was! But when David, scarce armed at all, a boy, brought down his lion and his bear, in an actual face-to-face encounter, the skins of the lion and of the bear were trophies indeed!

The next scene in David's life is when he meets Goliath. David is still a youth. The ruddy color has not yet been burned out of his cheeks by the Oriental sun. This meeting is different from any he has faced. It is not with a beast, but with a man--a man armed, a man experienced in combat, a man of much larger size and weight than himself, a man who had an assured sense of his own strength, a man whose voice, manner, and prowess put fear into the heart of every fighter in the army of Israel. In David's previous contests there had been an element of suddenness, so there was no time for hesitation, and so no time for the cowardice often born of hesitation; in this contest there was delay, and during that delay David was twitted with the foolishness of even thinking of facing Goliath, and an effort was made to break down his courage. Right manfully, however, did he stand up to the danger. Instead of a lamb, an army was in peril. The cause was worthy of a great venture. He made the venture. He took smooth stones from the brook, he used his shepherd's sling, he conquered Goliath, and Goliath's sword and Goliath's head became trophies of a splendid victory. The youth had rescued an army from paralyzing fear, and had saved the glory of Jehovah's name! He deserved credit then. He received it then. And he became forever an inspiring example to all youth who would fight their country's battles, and win laurels for the God of battles.

These two scenes are suggestive. The one with the lion and the bear speaks to us of pure physical bravery. David has such muscular strength that he, by the power in his hands and arms, can hold beasts and fight a winning fight with them. David's strength makes the killing of a lion or bear with a rifle, whether at long distance or even near at hand, seem small. It makes the ordinary successes of those who contest in the athletic trials of our day seem insignificant. Still it glorifies those successes. Physical bravery is most desirable. People believe so. They love to see contests of physical endurance. They will go miles to watch such contests, and they will cheer the victors to the echo. In so doing to-day they follow the example of all preceding generations. Barbarian, Greek, Roman, Indian, every man everywhere is interested in muscular power. It fells trees and wins victories over the forest; it plows soil and wins victories over the fields; it breaks stone and wins victories over roadbeds. Physical victories are not to be gainsaid. May every life win them if it can against nature, against other lives in fair athletics, against any one who would rob a home or burn a house. The ambition to win muscular victories, in a right way, for the defense or honor of a worthy cause, is to be commended. Victories so won make their winners heroes. Waterloo is said to have been fought and won on the foot-ball ground of Rugby.

The other scene is likewise suggestive--of David with Goliath. It is that of a youth fighting for his country and his God. It is still a physical contest, but it is now skill and muscle combined; or rather, muscle directed by skill. The contest, physically considered, is unequal. David is no match for Goliath. They are in different classes. But a calm mind, a dexterous hand, and a high purpose are David's, and they more than compensate for lack of physical force. The strongest battalions do not always conquer. The strongest physical force is not to conquer in this instance. Patriotism may so nerve the heart that one man is equal to a hundred, and resolute purpose may develop such skill and sturdiness that a few can put a thousand to flight. It has always been so--in days of Marathon and in days of Bunker Hill--and it always will be so. The men who win such victories may well be lauded. It was right that David's name should go into the ballads of his country and be repeated again and again to stir the heart of patriotism. Any man who can fight the battles of trade or of manufacturing or of invention--any man who can head a great industry, who can write a strong book, or who can make an eloquent speech--any man who conquers the difficulty of his position by skill and energy, and succeeds, has indeed won a great victory. For a mere shepherd youth to conquer a trained fighter was superb; and it is superb to-day when a poor boy honestly wins his way to wealth, and a stammering boy learns to speak like a Demosthenes, and a seeming dunce becomes a brilliant Scott. All soldiers conquering like Grant, all discoverers succeeding like Columbus, all investigators searching like Darwin and writing like Spencer, deserve crowns of recognition for victories they have won.

As a result of these two scenes in David's life many other scenes of a somewhat similar nature occurred. As occasions arose, David led many another attack upon the nation's foes. He possessed the rare power of creating a well-disciplined force out of outlaws. He so combined skill and leadership that none of the enemies of Israel could resist him. The story of his battles is a long and a glorious one. He was a fighter of whom the nation might be proud. If physical prowess and military skill and administrative force and legislative provision are essential to kingly success, he had them. Victory after victory, in all these lines, were written upon his banner.

But David's fame does not rest upon the victories he won over beast or fellow-man, interesting and great as these victories are. The reason that the Bible gives him the space it does, and the reason Christ is said to be David's son , is because of the victories David won over himself. In the sphere of his own heart he found his greatest difficulties, for in that sphere he found his strongest foes; but in that sphere he wrought out his greatest victories. The best element in David's life is not his physical strength, not his intellectual skill, not his ability as a singer, a general, a judge, a builder, or a king, but the best element is his conquest of himself.

How many men, otherwise splendid men, have failed just here. They could fight bravely as sailors or soldiers, but later they could not treat a rival graciously. They could win successes socially or commercially or scholastically, but they became jealous of their places and their recognitions, and they wished no good to the one who in any way stood in their path. But David, knowing that he himself was anointed to be king, and that Saul's persecution of him was unjustifiable, still rose so far above all thought of preserving his own dignity and insisting on his own rights, that when his enemy lay helpless at his feet, he treated him with deference! Now we begin to see why David is called "a man after God's own heart." Was it because he could fight beast and man well? No; but because he could fight his own jealous, bitter heart and make it generous and kind and magnanimous.

There is nothing in our world that shows high victory better than penitence. Mankind does wrong. Sometimes it knows the wrong. Then perhaps it confesses its wrong in the hurried words, "I have sinned." So said Pharaoh, and immediately did again what he had done before. So said Saul, and never gave up the wrong that forced the confession from him. So said Judas, and went out to hang himself. But when David said it, he said it with a broken and a contrite heart. The man who having sinned conquers all the passion and pride of his soul and becomes a sweet, true, pure penitent is a victor over whom angels rejoice. Thousands of men who have made a success in their own field of labor fail to win life's best victories because they never bow before God and say, "Lord, be merciful to me a sinner." They are as stout-hearted as the Pharisee, and as self-deceived. They forget the bitternesses they have cherished toward their fellow-men, they overlook all the omissions of goodness that have marked their lives, they do not consider how terrible is their present and their past ingratitude to God for all His goodness to them, and so they lack that gentlest, most beautiful, and most exalting virtue of penitence.

Humility is not a virtue easily won. The virtue of sweetly accepting minor place when we wished major place, and of working as earnestly for another as for ourselves, is very rare. In the army of Washington there was a general, Charles Lee, who again and again was conquered by his own jealousy, and would not do as the interests of Washington, his commanding officer, demanded. He would have fought to the death for his own reputation, but not for the reputation of Washington. Self-made men find it exceedingly difficult to be humble. David won a far higher victory when he cheerily went about all the self-imposed tasks of gathering material for Solomon's temple than when he fought the lion or Goliath, or led an army into battle. The man that does justice does well; the man that does justice and loves mercy does better; the man that does justice and loves mercy and walks humbly before God does best. And no man, whoever he may be, strong, reputable, industrious, scholarly, wealthy, ever wins his best victories until he walks humbly with his God.

This was perhaps his very best victory. Winkelried opened his breast to receive all the concentrated spear thrusts of the enemy, that thus the army behind him might have chance to advance. The self-immolating life is the noblest. True love comes to its expression in self-sacrifice. Christ reached His highest glory, not when He battled with wind and wave and conquered them, not when He battled with disease and demons and conquered them, not when He battled with lawyers and dialecticians and conquered them, but when He poured out His life for others.

There are victories to be won at every step of our life's progress. No one of them is to be underestimated. Victories of mere brawn, wrought worthily in proper time and proper place, are good; victories of intellectual skill, wrought worthily in proper purpose and proper spirit, are good; but the best victories any life can win are the victories won within a man's own heart. These are the most difficult victories, and they are the most glorious victories. Each person, equally with every other, has opportunity for such victories. Whenever David failed to carry God and God's help into a battle he lost; but whenever he fought under God and for God he won. David's life knew many and many a failure, but he rose from every failure and made a new effort. As a result, victory crowned his life, and he died a man of God. Victory, too, may crown our lives, however weak they are, if like David, after every fall, we penitently turn to God, and in His grace strive once again to win the victories of faith.

MAKING THE BEST USE OF OUR LIVES.

MAKING THE BEST USE OF OUR LIVES.

The great Humboldt once said, "The aim of every man should be to secure the highest and most harmonious development of his powers to a complete and consistent whole." Another thoughtful man, Sir John Lubbock, also said, "Our first object should be to make the most and best of ourselves."

Prominent among the historic personages who have made the best use of their lives is Joseph. Touch his career at any point that is open to investigation, and always Joseph will be found doing the very best that under the circumstances can be done. When his father tells him to carry food to his envious brothers, he obediently faces the danger of their hatred and goes. When he is a slave in Potiphar's house he discharges all his duties so discreetly that the prison-keeper trusts him implicitly. When his fellow-prisoners have heavy hearts, he feels their sorrows and tries to give them relief. When Pharaoh commits the ordering of a kingdom to his keeping, he governs the nation ably. When foresight has placed abundant food in his control, he feeds the famishing nations so that all are preserved. When his father and his brethren are in need, he graciously supplies their wants. When that father is dying, the son is as tender with him as a mother with her child. And when that father has died, the son reverences his father's last request and carries Jacob's body far up into the old home country at Machpelah for burial.

There were many occasions in Joseph's life in which he might have failed. At least, in any one of them he might have come short of the best. Seneca used to say of himself, "All I require of myself is, not to be equal to the best, but only to be better than the bad." But Joseph aimed in every individual experience to be equal to the best. In that aim he succeeded wondrously. Going out, as a young boy, from the simple home of a shepherd, becoming a captive in a strange land, subjected to great temptations in a luxurious civilization, tested with a great variety of important duties, exposed to the peril of pride and self-sufficiency, given opportunity for revenge upon those who had injured him, he always, without exception, carried himself well, doing his part bravely, earnestly, and wisely, and making of his life, in each opportunity, the best.

It is not every one that is called to such a vast range of experience as was Joseph. Even Christ never traveled out of His own little environment of Judea, that was a few miles north and south, and still fewer miles east and west. The great majority of lives never come into public prominence. They have no part in administering the affairs of a kingdom or in managing large mercantile transactions. Even among the apostles there were some whose history is almost lost in obscurity. We scarce know anything of what Bartholomew said or Lebbeus did. It is not a question whether we can make a great name for ourselves. That may be absolutely impossible. Many a beautiful flower is so placed in some extensive field that human eyes never see it and human lips consequently never praise it. But the question is, whether we are doing the best that can be done with our lives such as they are.

Every human life is like the life of some tree. Each tree is at its best when it well fulfils the purpose for which it was made. There are trees which must stand as towering as the date-palm if they answer their end, and there are other trees which can never expect to be towering, for they were made, like the box, to keep near the ground. Some trees are for outward fruit, as the apple, and some for inward fruit, as the ash. Fruit is "correspondence in development with the purpose for which the tree exists," is "production in the line of the nature of the tree." When, then, the orange tree produces sound, sweet oranges that refresh the dry lips of an invalid or ornament the table of a prince, the orange tree does well; and if it produces such fruit to as large a degree as possible, and for as long a time as possible, it has done its best. So, too, does the pine do well when it produces wood wherewith a good house for family joy may be built, and the spruce does well when it brings forth a fiber that may be fashioned into paper on which words of truth can be printed, and the oak does well when it develops a grain suitable for the construction of a vessel that plowing the waves shall carry cargoes of merchandise. If the pine, the spruce, the oak, grow to the extent of their opportunity, and become all that they can become in the line of their own possibility, each and all have made the best use of their lives.

But how varied are the opportunities as well as the missions of trees, of the garden cherry and the forest poplar, of the swamp tamarack and the plantation catalpa! Trees of the same genus may be so differently placed that one can attain an abundant growth while another must strive hard simply to exist. An elm along a river bottom, fed by constant moisture, lifts wide arms to the sunlight, while an elm on a rocky hill, scarce finding crevices for its roots, necessarily is small and stunted. And still that stunted elm may, in its place, make or not make the best use of its life.

Human lives are as diversified in their natures as the growths of the field and forest. Our tastes, our aptitudes, our memories, our imaginations, widely vary. The world is made up of thousands upon thousands of different needs, that must be met if mankind is to prosper. Every function necessary for the world's welfare is an honorable function and becomes, when attempted by a consecrated heart, a sacred function. The world cannot live without cooking, nor can it live without building, nor without bartering, nor without teaching. How to make the best of the function or functions that are his, is the question every human being should ponder.

But with his forced departure into Egypt, probably into the city of Memphis, all his surroundings are new and untried. The shepherd boy is given the duties of a household servant, exchanging the freedom of the field for the confinement of the palace. But he takes up his new duties, magnifying them as an opportunity of development, and he makes the best use of them. Later, he who has known only a tent and a palace is in a prison, and is charged with the work of a prison guard. Right well he does that work, studying it, giving himself to it, and making a success of it by his heartiness and fidelity. Later still, he who has only tended sheep and ordered a household and enforced discipline is called to be a comforter to souls. He summons his sympathy, he persuasively approaches those whose hearts are sore, he obtains their confidence, and relieves their anxiety. Still again, this prisoner, this shepherd boy, this household servant, this man with pity in his eyes, is called to a new adaptation. He must appear before a Pharaoh and as a courtier have interview with him! That underlying purpose of his heart, always to make the best of the hour and place, stands him in good stead, and the courtier conducts himself so wisely that he is advanced to be an Egyptian viceroy. Later still this viceroy must become a minister of agriculture and charge a nation when and how to sow the fields. Still later he must become a secretary of the treasury, purchasing grain and building store-houses. Still later he must be a great premier, both providing for present need and making arrangements for future taxation. Later he must be a brother with a true brother's heart and a son with a son's gentleness toward an aged and perhaps imperious parent. Later he must be a mourner, then a traveler, and then as an orphan son he must assume again the heavy burdens of statesmanship.

What strange varieties of experience Joseph thus met! How those experiences kept changing every little while! Why did he succeed so well in them? Because in every one of them he made the best use of himself that the occasion allowed. He magnified the opportunity he had. The thing that was at hand to do he did with absolute fidelity.

A physician whose life has been beautiful in good deeds and in a high faith once said, "My happiness and usefulness in the world are due to a chance question from a stranger. I was a poor boy and a cripple. One day, standing on a ball-field and watching other boys who were strong, well clothed, and healthy, I felt bitter and envious. The friends of the players were waiting to applaud them. I never could play nor have applause! I was sick at heart.

"A young man beside me must have seen the discontent on my face. He touched my arm, and said, 'You wish you were one of those boys, do you?' 'Yes, I do,' I answered quickly. 'They have everything and I have nothing.'

"Quietly he said, 'God has given them money, education, and health that they may be of some account in the world. Did it never strike you that he gave you your lameness for the same reason, to make a splendid man of you?'

"I did not answer, but I never forgot the words. 'My lameness given me by God to teach me patience and strength!'

"At first I did not believe the words, but I was a thoughtful boy, taught to reverence God, and the more I considered the words, the clearer I saw their truth. I decided to accept the words. I let them work upon my temper, my purposes, my actions. I now looked on every difficulty as an opportunity for struggle, every situation of my life as an occasion for good. If a helpless invalid was cast on me for support, or whatever the burden that came to me, I resolved to do my best. Since then life has been sweetened and growth into peace and usefulness has come."

"The duty lying nearest" was the duty Joseph magnified. He accepted that duty as divine, and he performed it under God faithfully, serviceably, and cheerily. Any and every life that meets duty as Joseph did, will make the best of its life. We may be placed in low position or in high position; we may have menial or kingly responsibilities; we may have temptations of all possible kinds about us; but if we look to God for guidance, and carry faithfulness, serviceableness, and cheer into each and every duty, we shall have made of life the best.

PUTTING THE BEST INTO OTHERS.

PUTTING THE BEST INTO OTHERS.

There is nothing more worthy than the desire to perpetuate the good. That desire implies that the person cherishing it has good within himself, and that he wishes that good to live and flourish after his death. If a man thinks that his views are the best that can be held, then, if he is a noble soul, interested in the world's welfare, he longs to have his best enter into other lives, and so continue to bless the world.

This longing characterized Elijah. He came upon the scene of human life at a time when the worship of the low and debased threatened to dominate the people of Israel. The priests of Baal, an impure god, were in the ascendant. Vices, as a consequence, prevailed. These vices controlled even the court. King Ahab and Queen Jezebel were impiously wrong. Elijah had stern work to do. He must reprove the people for their errors. He must face the priests of Baal and show them and show the nation that their god, as compared to Jehovah, was powerless. He must tell those in high places, even the king and queen themselves, that their sins, if persisted in, would surely be visited by Jehovah's wrath.

His was a difficult task. It required courage, persistency, and determined purpose. It would have been folly for him to undertake it unless he felt that his ideas were essential to the nation's good. He would be resisted and hated. Hours would come when he would seem to stand wholly alone, and the cause he represented would appear to him hopeless. Still, difficult as his task was, he undertook it. All this worship of Baal and all these vicious practices of the people were wrecking the nation. As a patriot, as a lover of his fellow-man, as a good servant of God, he must do and he would do whatever was in his power to replace the wrong with the right, to implant in the lives of the people, from peasant to king, the truest and purest ideals. Accordingly he faithfully taught the will of God, called upon God to reveal Himself on Mount Carmel, reproved Ahab and Jezebel, and did his best to put the best into the life of his day.

But he could not live forever. At any hour he might be stricken down by the hand of an enemy or by the power of some illness. Like a wise man, loving the cause he had espoused, he looked about for some one who, in case of his disability or death, could take up his work and carry forward his ideas. His mind turned toward one special man, perhaps just coming out of boyhood into maturity, a man who seemed to have the inherent power of development, and he set his heart on putting into him, Elisha, the best thought and the best principles that he had. He came upon Elisha in the full vigor of youth, plowing with twelve yoke of oxen. The distinctive garment of Elijah's mission was his mantle. That stood for Elijah's special work of speaking the truth of God and calling the nation to righteousness. Upon seeing Elisha in the field, Elijah passed over from the caravan path that he was traveling, and threw his mantle upon Elisha's shoulders! The action carried its own meaning. It indicated to Elisha that Elijah wished him to take up his work and stand for his ideas. Elisha instantly realized the meaning of the act, and, in briefest time compatible with filial duty, he answered to Elijah's wish.

One little sentence in the story of these two men's lives is very instructive. "They two went on." It is a very brief summary of what was occurring for days and months and years before Elijah died. "They two went on." They were together. They talked together. They thought together. They prayed together. Little by little Elijah imparted to Elisha his views of life and imparted to him also his enthusiasm for the welfare of Israel. When the time came for Elisha to step forward and do his part for Israel's good, he was ready to act. He became and long continued to be a wise, helpful, instructive benefactor to Israel. The best that had been in Elijah's life was perpetuated in Elisha's life.

Wonderful resources are often developed in others through this purpose to put our best into them. No one knows the power latent in another life. The most unpromising looking people may have faculties that, once awakened, directed, and called into action, will do a blessed part in the world's advance. Every school whose history can be followed for fifty years has had pupils that at the outset seemed absolutely unpromising, that seemed even incapable of appreciation or development, but who, under the devotion and inspiration of some teacher or fellow-pupil, became so aroused and so efficient that their names are an honor to the school. The glory of every Ragged Boys' Home in a great city is that former inmates who were thieves, parentless and friendless, were so reached by a patient, loving man or woman that they became industrious and honorable citizens, holding positions of power in the city itself or possessing prosperous acres in the country. It is the boy picked up in the streets of New York and sent West to be a member of a farmer's household that was led by that household's interest into such character that he was appointed governor of Alaska. "I have made," said Sir Humphry Davy, "many discoveries, but the best discovery was when I discovered Michael Faraday." There is scarcely any joy comparable with the joy of discovering to himself and to the world the best elements possible in another's life. The one who brought about this discovery gladly sinks into the background, and rejoices to let the field be occupied by the one discovered. It would seem as though God Himself must have rejoiced when, after all His patient teaching of Moses on the side of Horeb, He saw Moses showing his superb power of leadership in Egypt, and that God must have similarly rejoiced when He saw Paul responding to His charge and manifesting traits of love, forbearance, and humility that Paul had not thought he possessed. To put one Elisha into the world's arena, there to stand and battle for the right, was the crowning glory and the crowning joy of Elijah's life. The men or women that can take the best that is in them and put it into another, so that another shall live the best, honor the best, and glorify the best, can ask no higher privilege in life.

No parent, teacher, or friend can possibly reproduce himself in another. It is God's law that, however alike plants may seem in reproduction, no child shall see life exactly as his parents, nor shall a pupil see it exactly as a teacher. This law is most wise. The same work is never given to any two people to do. It may be work of the same general nature, but never work the same in all particulars. Different types of men, actuated by the same motives, are required for different types of work. Any man who endeavors to be a pure copyist of another gone before him, always fails of individual development and fails of usefulness. Elijah could not foresee the changed circumstances in which Elisha would live, when many of the vexatious questions of Elijah's day would be settled and new questions of morality and public welfare would arise. All that he could do, all that any man can do, is to give the best he has to another, and send him forth to use that best as well as the other can in the new place. The beauty of human history is that the work the best man of one age could not accomplish, another coming after him does accomplish, and he accomplishes it, not because he is any better than his predecessor, but because he is the man for this hour as his predecessor was for the hour before this. There is always work to be done. There are always tasks left over from a previous generation. There are always ideas hitherto unemphasized that to-day must be emphasized, else society will not know its duty. For this work and task and emphasis new men are needed, men who do not see exactly as their fathers saw, nor pronounce nor act exactly as their fathers did. To provide such men, to inspire them with a great sense of duty, and send them out into life with open minds toward God and open hearts toward their fellows, and then withdraw our hand and let them do their own work, in their own way, this is our blessed privilege.

This is the parent's greatest hope and greatest reward, to have a child who shall in the child's own time and place be an advancer of the world's good. A thousand spheres of opportunity open before each new generation. Into any one of them the child may carry the best his father or mother ever thought or said. Many parents wish their children to do in life work of the very same type that they once did. It was therefore a gratification to their ministerial fathers when they saw their own sons enter the ministry, Henry Ward Beecher, Jonathan Edwards, Frederick W. Farrar, Charles H. Spurgeon, John Wesley, and Reginald Heber. But other ministerial fathers likewise might be gratified when they saw their sons helpfully laboring in noble spheres not specifically "the ministry," as in poetry, Joseph Addison, Samuel T. Coleridge, William Cowper, Ben Jonson, Oliver Goldsmith, Alfred Tennyson, James Russell Lowell, Oliver W. Holmes, John Keble, and James Montgomery; as in literature, Matthew Arnold, Bancroft, Froude, Hallam, and Parkman; as in art, Joshua Reynolds and Christopher Wren; as in law, Lord Ellenborough, Stephen J. Field, David J. Brewer, David Dudley Field; as in statesmanship, Henry Clay, Edward Everett, Sir William Harcourt, John B. Balfour, and William Forster; and as in invention, Samuel F. B. Morse.

But while the great opportunity of putting the best into others is the parent's , still others, besides parents, may use direct means toward this same end. Here is the teacher's opportunity. A plastic, receptive mind is before him. It says to him: "I am here to be taught. Teach me the best--the best way to see, to reason, to act, the best way to do my part in society and the world." Many a teacher has looked on that opportunity as sacred; has valued it as much as Elijah valued his opportunity to cast his mantle on Elisha. Such teachers have wrought out most valuable results. They have put ideas, methods, principles, and a spirit into pupils that have made those pupils a blessing to the world. The pupils may not recall much of what the teacher said--perhaps they cannot recall one particular truth that the teacher enforced--but they recall a purpose that dominated the teacher, and the pupils now are endeavoring to fulfil what they feel would be the wishes of that teacher if the teacher to-day could stand beside them.

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