Heart not so heavy as mine,
Wending late home,
As it passed my window
Whistled itself a tune.
Emily Dickinson.
I have never seen good come from frightening worriers. It is no doubt wise to speak the truth, but it seems to me a mistake to say in public print or in private advice that worry leads to tragedies of the worst sort. No matter how hopeful we may be in our later teaching about the possibilities of overcoming worry, the really serious worrier will pounce upon the original tragic statement and apply it with terrible insistence to his own case.
I would not minimize the seriousness of worry, but I am convinced that we can rarely overcome it by direct voluntary effort. It does not go until we forget it, and we do not forget it if we are always trying consciously to overcome it. We worriers must go about our business—other business than that of worry.
Life is serious—alas, too serious—and full enough of pathos. We cannot joke about its troubles; they are real. But, at least, we need not magnify them. Why should we act as though everything depended upon our efforts, even the changing seasons and the blowing winds? No doubt we are responsible for our own acts and thoughts and for the welfare of those who depend upon us. The trouble is we take unnecessary responsibilities so seriously that we overreach ourselves and defeat our own good ends.
I would make my little world more blessedly careless—with an abandon that loves life too much to spoil it with worry. I would cherish so great a desire for my child’s good that I could not scold and bear down upon him for every little fault, making him a worrier too, but, instead, I would guide him along the right path with pleasant words and brave encouragement. The condemnation of faults is rarely constructive.
We had better say to the worriers, “Here is life; no matter what unfortunate things you may have said or done, you must put all evil behind you and live—simply, bravely, well.” The greater the evil, the greater the need of forgetting. Not flippantly, but reverently, leave your misdeeds in a limbo where they may not rise to haunt you. This great thing you may do, not with the idea of evading or escaping consequences, but so that past evil may be turned into present and future good. The criminal himself is coming to be treated this way. He is no longer eternally reminded of his crime. He is taken out into the sunshine and air and is given a shovel to dig with. A wonderful thing is that shovel. With it he may bury the past and raise up a happier, better future. We must care so much to expiate our sins that we are willing to neglect them and live righteously. That is true repentance, constructive repentance.
We cannot suddenly change our mental outlook and become happy when grief has borne us down. “For the broken heart silence and shade,”—that is fair and right. I would say to those who are unhappy, “Do not try to be happy, you cannot force it; but let peace come to you out of the great world of beauty that calmly surrounds our human suffering, and that speaks to us quietly of God.” Genuine laughter is not forced, but we may let it come back into our lives if we know that it is right for it to come.
We have all about us instances of the effectiveness of the lighter touch as applied to serious matters. The life of the busy surgeon is a good example. He may be, and usually is, brimming with sympathy, but if he were to feel too deeply for all his patients, he would soon fail and die. He goes about his work. He puts through a half-dozen operations in a way that would send cold shivers down the back of the uninitiated. And yet he is accurate and sure as a machine. If he were to take each case upon his mind in a heavy, consequential way, if he were to give deep concern to each ligature he ties, and if he were to be constantly afraid of causing pain, he would be a poor surgeon. His work, instead of being clean and sharp, would suffer from over-conscientiousness. He might never finish an operation for fear his patient would bleed to death. Such a man may be the reverse of flippant, and yet he may actually enjoy his somber work. Cruel, bloodthirsty? Not at all. These men—the great surgeons—are as tender as children. But they love their work, they really care very deeply for their patients. The successful ones have the lighter touch and they have no time for worry.
Sometimes we wish to arouse the public conscience. Do the long columns of figures, the impressive statistics, wake men to activity? It is rather the keen, bright thrust of the satirist that saves the day. Once in a New England town meeting there was a movement for a much-needed new schoolhouse. By the installation of skylights in the attic the old building had been made to accommodate the overflow of pupils. The serious speakers in favor of the new building had left the audience cold, when a young man arose and said he had been up into the attic and had seen the wonderful skylights that were supposed to meet the needs of the children. “I have seen them,” he said; “we used to call them scuttles when I was a boy.” A hundred thousand dollars was voted for the new schoolhouse.
There is a natural gayety in most of us which helps more than we realize to keep us sound. The pity is that when responsibilities come and hardships come, we repress our lighter selves sternly, as though such repression were a duty. Better let us guard the springs of happiness very, very jealously. The whistling boy in the dark street does more than cheer himself on the way. He actually protects himself from evil, and brings courage not only to himself, but to those who hear him. I do not hold for false cheerfulness that is sometimes affected, but a brave show of courage in a forlorn hope will sometimes win the day. It is infinitely more likely to win than a too serious realization of the danger of defeat. The show of courage is often not a pretense at all, but victory itself.
The need of the world is very great and its human destiny is in our hands. Half of those who could help to right the wrongs are asleep or too selfishly immersed in their own affairs. We need more helpers like my friend of the skylights. Most of us are far too serious. The slumberers will slumber on, and the worriers will worry, the serious people will go ponderously about until some one shows them how ridiculous they are and how pitiful. ←ToC
Regret avails little—still less remorse—the one keeps alive the old offense, the other creates new offenses.
Goethe.
The unrepentant sinner walks abroad. Unfortunately for us moralists he seems to be having a very good time. We must not condone him, though he may be a very lovable person; neither must we altogether condemn him, for he may be repentant in the very best way of all ways, the way that forgets much and leaves behind more, because life is so fine that it must not be spoiled, and because progress is in every way better than retrospection. The fact is, that repentance is too often the fear of punishment, and such fear is, to say the least, unmanly. I would rather be a lovable sinner than one of the people who repent because they cannot bear to think of the consequences. Knowledge and fear of consequences undoubtedly keep a great many young people from the so-called sins of ignorance. But there must be something behind knowledge and fear of consequences to stop the youth of spirit from doing what he is inclined to do. Over and over again we must go back to the appreciation of life’s dignity and beauty—to the consciousness of the spirit of God behind and in the world if we are to find a balance and a character that will “deliver us from evil.”
When we have found this consciousness—when we live it and breathe it, we shall be far less apt to sin, and when we have sinned, as we all must in the course of our blundering lives, we shall not waste our time in regret or in the fear of consequences. If the God we dream of is as great as the sea, or as beautiful as a tree, we need not fear Him. He will be tender, and just at the same time. He will be as forgiving as He is strong. The best we can do, then, is to leave our sins in the hand of God and go our way, sadder and wiser, maybe, but not regretting too much, not fearing any more.
There is a new idea in medicine—the development of which has been one of the most striking achievements of modern times—the idea of psychanalysis as taught and advocated by Freud in Germany. The plan is to study the subconscious mind of the nervous patient by means of hypnotism, to assist the patient to recall all the mental experiences of his past,—even his very early childhood,—and in this way to make clear the origin of the misconceptions and the unfortunate impressions which have presumably exerted their influence through the years. The new system includes, also, the interpretation of dreams, their effect upon the conscious life and their influence upon the mentality. Very wonderful results are reported from the pursuit of this method. Many a badly warped and twisted life has been straightened out and renewed when the searchlight has revealed the hidden influences that have been at work and which have made trouble. The repression of conscious or unconscious feelings can no doubt change the whole mental life. We should have the greatest respect for the men who are doing this work. It requires, I am told, an almost unbelievable amount of patience and time to accomplish the analysis. No doubt the adult judgment of childish follies is a direct means of disposing of their harmful influence in life, the surest way of losing the conscious or unconscious regrets that sadden many lives. There are probably many cases of disturbed and troubled mind that can be cured in this way only. The method does not appeal to me because I am so strongly inclined to take people as they are, to urge a forgetfulness that does not really forget, but which goes on bravely to the development of life. This development cannot proceed without the understanding that life may be made so beautiful that sins and failures are lost in progress. Some of us may need the subtle analysis of our lives to make clear the points where we went astray in our thoughts and ideas, but many of us, fortunately, are able to take ourselves for better or for worse, sins and all. Most of us ought to do that, for the most part, if we are to progress and live. Sometimes the revelations of evils we know not of result in complications rather than simplification, as in the case of a boy who wrote to me and said that since he had learned of his early sins he had made sure that he could never be well. Instead of going into further analysis with him, I assured him that, while it was undoubtedly his duty to regret all the evil of his life, it was a still greater duty to go on and live the rest of it well, and that he could do so if he would open his eyes to the possibilities of unselfish service.
I am very much inclined to preach against self-analysis and the almost inevitable regret and despair that accompany it.
One of my patients decided some time ago that her life was wasted, that she had accomplished nothing. It was true that she had not the endurance to meet the usual demands of social or even family life, and that for long periods she had to give up altogether. But it happened that she had the gift of musical understanding, that she had studied hard in younger days. With a little urging the gift was made to grow again and to serve not only the patient’s own needs, but to bring very great pleasure to every one who listened to her playing. That rare, true ability was worth everything, and she came to realize it in time. The gift of musical expression is a very great thing, and I succeeded in making this woman understand that she should be happy in that ability even if nothing else should be possible.
Often enough nothing that can compare with music exists, and life seems wholly barren. Rather cold comfort it seems at first to assure a person who is helpless that character is the greatest thing in the world, but that is the final truth. The most limited and helpless life may glow with it and be richer than imagination can believe. It is never time to regret—and never time to despair. The less analysis the better. When it comes to character, live, grow, and get a deeper and deeper understanding of life—of life that is near to God and so capable of wrong only as we turn away from Him. “Do not say things; what you are stands over you and thunders so, I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.” We shall do well not to forget that, whatever failures or mistakes we have made, there is infinite possibility ahead of us, that character is the greatest thing in the world, and that most good character has been built upon mistakes and failures. I believe there is no sin which may not make up the fabric of its own forgiveness in the living of a free, self-sacrificing life. I know of no bodily ill nor handicap which we may not eventually rise above and beyond by means of brave spiritual progress. The body may fail us, but the spirit reaches on and into the great world of God. ←ToC
The virtues hide their vanquished fires
Within that whiter flame—
Till conscience grows irrelevant
And duty but a name.
Frederick Lawrence Knowles.
In most books I have read on “nerves” and similar subjects, advice is given, encouragement is given, but the necessity for patience is not made clear. Patience is typical of all the other virtues. Many a man has followed the best of advice for a time, and has become discouraged because the promised results did not materialize. It is disappointing, surely, to have lived upon a diet for months only to find that you still have dyspepsia, or to have followed certain rules of morality with great precision and enthusiasm without obtaining the untroubled mind. We are accustomed to see results in the material world and naturally expect them everywhere. The trouble is we do not always recognize improvements when we see them, and we insist upon certain preconceived changes as a result of our endeavors. The physician is apt rashly to promise definite physical accomplishments in a given time. He is courting disappointment and distrust when he does so. We all want to get relief from our symptoms, and we are inclined to insist upon a particular kind of relief so strongly that we fail to appreciate the possibilities of another and a better relief which may be at hand. The going astray in this particular is sometimes very unfortunate. I have known a man to rush frantically from one doctor to another, trying to obtain relief for a particular pain or discomfort, unwilling to rest long enough to find out that the trouble would have disappeared naturally if he had taken the advice of the first physician, to live without impatience and within his limitations.
The human body is a very complex organism, and sometimes pain and distress are better not relieved, since they may be the expression of some deeper maladjustment which must first be straightened out. This is also true of the mind—in which the unhappy proddings of conscience had better not be cured by anodynes or by evasion unless we are prepared to go deeply enough to make them disappear spontaneously. We must sometimes insist upon patience, though it should exist as a matter of course—patience with ourselves and with others. The physician who demands and secures the greatest degree of patience from his clients is the most successful practitioner, for no life can go on successfully without patience. If patience can be spontaneous,—the natural result of a broadening outlook,—then it will be permanent and serviceable; the other kind, that exists by extreme effort, may do for a while, but it is a poor makeshift.
I always feel like apologizing when I ask a man or a woman to be tolerant or charitable or generous or, for that matter, to practice any of the ordinary virtues. Sound living should spring unbidden from the very joy of life; it should need no justification and certainly no urging. But unfortunately, as the world now stands, there are men and groups of men who do not see the light. There is a wide contagion of selfishness and short-sightedness among the well-to-do, and a necessary federation of protection and selfishness among the poor. The practical needs of life, artificial as they are among the rich, and terribly insistent as they are among the poor, blind us to larger considerations.
If all matters of welfare, public or private, could be treated unselfishly, how quickly we should be rid of some of the great evils that afflict the race. I am inclined to think that much of the goodness of people does come in that way, unconsciously, naturally, as the light flows from the sun. Yet I suppose that in our present order, and until, through the years, the better time arrives, we must very often ask ourselves and others to be good and to be charitable, just because it is right, or worse still because it is good policy.
A man grows better, more human, more intelligent, as he practices the virtues. He is safer, no doubt, and the world is better. It is even true that, by the constant practice of virtues, he may come finally to espouse goodness and become thoroughly good. That is the hopeful thing about it and the reason why we may consistently ask or demand the routine practice of the virtues. But let us hold up all the time in our teaching and in our lives the other course, the development of the inspiration that includes all virtues and that makes all our way easy and plain in a world where confusion reigns, because men are going at the problem of right living the wrong way around.
The practice of good living will never be easy in its details, but if it is sure in its inspiration there will be no question of the final triumph. We shall have to fight blindly sometimes and with all the strength and persistence of animals at bay. We shall fail sometimes, too, and that is not always the worst thing that can happen. It is the glory of life that we shall slowly triumph over ourselves and the world. It is the glory of life that out of sore trouble, in the midst of poverty and human injustice, may rise, spontaneous and serene, the spirit of self-sacrifice, the unconquerable spirit of service that does not question, that expresses the divine tenderness in terms of human love. Through the times of darkness and doubt which must inevitably come, there will be for those who cherish such a vision, and who come back to it again and again, no utter darkness, no trouble that wholly crushes, no loss that wholly destroys.
If we could not understand it before, it will slowly dawn upon us that the life of Christ exemplified all these things. Charity, kindliness, service, patience,—all these things which have seemed so hard will become in our lives, as in his, the substance and expression of our faith. The great human virtues will become easy and natural, the untroubled mind, or as much of it as is good to possess, will be ours, not because we have escaped trouble, but because we have disarmed it, have welcomed it even, so long as it has served to strengthen and ennoble our lives. ←ToC
The healing of his seamless dress
Is by our beds of pain—
We touch Him in life’s throng and press,
And we are whole again.
Whittier.
I cannot finish my little book of ideals without writing some things that are in my mind about cure by faith or by prayer. It is a subject that I approach with hesitation because of the danger of misunderstanding. No subject is more difficult and none is more important for the invalid to understand. We hear a great deal about the wonderful cures of Christian Science or of similar agencies, and we all know of people who have been restored to usefulness by such means. Has the healing of Christ again become possible on earth? No one would be more eager to accept it and acknowledge it than the physician if it were really so. But careful investigation always reveals the fact that the wonderful cures are not of the body but of the mind. It is easy enough to say that a cancer or tuberculosis has been cured by faith, and apparently easy for many people to believe it, but alas, the proof is wanting. The Christian Scientist, honest and sincere as he may be, is not qualified to say what is true disease and what is not. What looks like diseased tissue recovers, but medical men know that it could not have been diseased in the most serious sense, and that the prayer for recovery could have had nothing to do with the cure, save in a very indirect way.
The man who discards medicine for philosophy or religion is courting unnecessary suffering and even death. The worst part of it is that he may induce some one else to make the same mistake with similar results. In writing this opinion I am in no way denying the great significance and value of faith nor of the prayerful and trustful mind. If it cannot cure actual physical disease, faith can accomplish veritable miracles of healing in the mind of the patient. No thoughtful or honest medical man will deny it. Nor will most medical men deny that the course of almost any physical illness may be modified by faith and prayer. I am almost saying that there is no known medicine of such potency. Every bodily function is the better for the conquering spirit that transcends the earth and finds its necessary expression in prayer.
There really need be no issue or disagreement between medicine and faith cure. At its best, one is not more wonderful than the other, and both aim to accomplish the same end—the relief of human suffering. When the two are merged, as some day they will be, we shall be surprised to discover how alike they are. Christian Science is rightly scorned by medical men because it is unscientific, because it makes absurd and untenable claims outside its own field, and because it has not as yet investigated that field in the scientific spirit. When proper study and investigation have been made it will be found that faith cure, not in its present state, but in some future development, will have an immense field of usefulness. It will be worthy of as much respect in that field as medicine proper in its own sphere. As a matter of fact both medicine and faith cure are miraculous in a very real sense, as both depend for efficiency now and always upon the same great laws which may be fairly called divine. What is the discovery that the serum of a horse will under certain circumstances cure diphtheria? Does it not mean that man is tapping sources of power far beyond his understanding? Is man responsible save as the agent? Did he produce the complex animal chemistry that makes this cure possible? Did man make the horse, or the laws that control the physiology and pathology of that animal? Here, then, is faith cure in its largest and best sense. The biologist may not be willing to admit it, but his faith in these great laws of God have made possible the cure of a dread disease. Here, as in all matters of pure religion, it is what men say and write, not the fact itself, that makes all the misunderstanding; we make our judgments and conceive our prejudices from mere surface considerations. Call life what you will,—leave out the symbolic word “God” altogether,—the facts remain. The true scientific spirit must reverence and adore the power that lies behind creation. It is as inconsistent for the bacteriologist to be an unbeliever as it is for the Christian Scientist to deny the value of bacteriology. Medicine is infinitely farther advanced than Christian Science, and yet Christian Science has grasped some truth that the natural scientist has stupidly missed. When an obsession is thrown off and courage substituted for fear, we witness as important a “cure” as can be shown to the credit of surgery. If the Christian Scientists and the other faith-curers were only less superficial and less narrow in their explanation of the facts, if they would condescend to study the diseases they treat, they would be entitled to, and would receive, more respect and consideration.
The cure and prevention of disease through the agency of man are evidently part of the divine plan. Our eagerness to advance along the lines of investigation and practice is but that divine plan in action. The truly scientific spirit will neglect no possible curative agent. When scientific men ridicule prayer, they are thinking not of the real thing which is above all possible criticism, but of the feeble and often pathetic groping for the real thing. We ask in our prayers for impossible blessings that would invert the laws of God and change the face of nature—very well, we must be prepared for disappointment. The attitude of prayer may, indeed, transform our own lives and make possible for us experiences that would otherwise have been impossible. But our pathetic demands—we shall never know how forlorn and weak they are. Prayer is the opening of the heart to the being we call God—it is most natural and reasonable. If we pray in our weakness and blindness for what we may not have, there is, nevertheless, a wonderful re-creative effect within us. The comfort and peace of such communion is beyond all else healing and restoring in its influence upon the troubled and anxious mind of man. The poet or the scientist who bows in adoration before the glory of God revealed in nature, prays in effect to that God and his soul is refreshed and renewed. The poor wretch who stands blindfolded before the firing squad, waiting the word that ends the life of a military spy, is near enough to God—and the whispered prayer upon his lips is cure for the wounds that take his life.
The best kind of prayer seeks not and asks not for physical relief or benefit, but opens the heart to its maker, and so receives the cure of peace that is a greater miracle than any yet wrought by man. Under the influence of that cure the sick are well and the dead are alive again. With the courage and spirit of such a cure in our lives, we shall inevitably do our utmost to relieve, by any good means, the physical suffering of the world. We shall follow the laws of nature. We shall study them with the utmost care. We shall take nothing for granted, since by less careful steps we shall miss the divine law and so go astray. The science of healing will become no chance and irrational thing. We shall use all the natural means to relieve and prevent suffering—there will be no scoring of one set of doctors by another because all will have one purpose. But more to the point than that, men will discover that health in its largest sense consists in living devout and prayerful lives whereunto shall be revealed in good time all that our finite minds can know and use. There will be no suffering of the body in the old and pitiful sense, for we shall be so much alive that disease and death can no longer claim us.
THE END ←ToC