The Boy I Had Envied

Frank was the boy I had envied. He had everything--a fine home, a loving father, plenty of money, opportunity and a great career awaiting him. And he was bright and lovable and talented. Everybody said Frank would make his mark in the world and make the town proud of him.

I was the janitor of the schoolhouse. Some of my cla.s.smates will never know how their thoughtless jeers and jokes wounded the sensitive, shabby boy who swept the floors, built the fires and carried in the coal. After commencement my career seemed to end and the careers of Frank and the rest of them seemed to begin. They were going off to college and going to do so many wonderful things.

But the week after commencement I had to go into a printing office, roll up my sleeves and go to work in the "devil's corner" to earn my daily bread. Seemed like it took so much bread!

Many a time as I plugged at the "case" I would think of Frank and wonder why some people had all the good things and I had all the hard things.

How easy it is to see as you look backward. But how hard it is to see when you look forward.

Twenty-one years afterward as I got off the train in the home town, I asked, "Where is he?" We went out to the cemetery, where I stood at a grave and read on the headstone, "Frank."

I had the story of a tragedy--the tragedy of modern unpreparedness. It was the story of the boy who had every opportunity, but who had all the struggle taken out of his life. He never followed his career, never developed any strength. He disappointed hopes, spent a fortune, broke his father's heart, shocked the community, and finally ended his wasted life with a bullet fired by his own hand.

Why Ben Hur Won

It revived the memory of the story of Ben Hur.

Do you remember it? The Jewish boy is torn from his home in disgrace.

He is haled into court and tried for a crime he never committed. Ben Hur did not get a fair trial. n.o.body can get a fair trial at the hands of this world. That is why the great Judge has said, judge not, for you have not the full evidence in the case. I alone have that.

Then they condemn him. They lead him away to the galleys. They chain him to the bench and to the oar. There follow the days and long years when he pulls on the oar under the lash. Day after day he pulls on the oar. Day after day he writhes under the sting of the lash. Years of the cruel injustice pa.s.s. Ben Hur is the helpless victim of a mocking fate.

That seems to be your life and my life. In the kitchen or the office, or wherever we work we seem so often like slaves bound to the oar and pulling under the sting of the lash of necessity. Life seems one futureless round of drudgery. We wonder why. We often look across the street and see somebody who lives a happier life. That one is chained to no oar. See what a fine time they all have. Why must we pull on the oar?

How blind we are! We can only see our own oar. We cannot see that they, too, pull on the oar and feel the lash. Most likely they are looking back at us and envying us. For while we envy others, others are envying us.

But look at the chariot race in Antioch. See the thousands in the circus. See Messala, the haughty Roman, and see! Ben Hur from the galleys in the other chariot pitted against him. Down the course dash these twin thunderbolts. The thousands hold their breath. "Who will win?" "The man with the stronger forearms," they whisper.

There comes the crucial moment in the race. See the man with the stronger forearms. They are bands of steel that swell in the forearms of Ben Hur. They swing those flying Arabians into the inner ring. Ben Hur wins the race! Where got the Jew those huge forearms? From the galleys!

Had Ben Hur never pulled on the oar, he never could have won the chariot race.

Sooner or later you and I are to learn that Providence makes no mistakes in the bookkeeping. As we pull on the oar, so often lashed by grim necessity, every honest effort is laid up at compound interest in the bank account of strength. Sooner or later the time comes when we need every ounce. Sooner or later our chariot race is on--when we win the victory, strike the deciding blow, stand while those around us fall--and it is won with the forearms earned in the galleys of life by pulling on the oar.

That is why I thanked G.o.d as I stood at the grave of my cla.s.smate. I thanked G.o.d for parents who believed in the gospel of struggle, and for the circ.u.mstances that compelled it.

I am not an example of success.

But I am a very grateful pupil in the first reader cla.s.s of The University of Hard Knocks.

Chapter IX

Go On South!

The Book in the Running Brook

THERE is a little silvery sheet of water in Minnesota called Lake Itasca. There is a place where a little stream leaps out from the lake.

"Ole!" you will exclaim, "the lake is leaking. What is the name of this little creek?"

"Creek! It bane no creek. It bane Mississippi river."

So even the Father of Waters has to begin as a creek. We are at the cradle where the baby river leaps forth. We all start about alike. It wabbles around thru the woods of Minnesota. It doesn't know where it is going, but it is "on the way."

It keeps wabbling around, never giving up and quitting, and it gets to the place where all of us get sooner or later. The place where Paul came on the road to Damascus. The place of the "heavenly vision."

It is the place where gravity says, "Little Mississippi, do you want to grow? Then you will have to go south."

The little Mississippi starts south. He says to the people, "Goodbye, folks, I am going south." The folks at Itascaville say, "Why, Mississippi, you are foolish. You hain't got water enough to get out of the county." That is a fact, but he is not trying to get out of the county. The Mississippi is only trying to go south.

The Mississippi knows nothing about the Gulf of Mexico. He does not know that he has to go hundreds of miles south. He is only trying to go south. He has not much water, but he does not wait for a relative to die and bequeath him some water. That is a beautiful thought! He has water enough to start south, and he does that.

He goes a foot south, then another foot south. He goes a mile south. He picks up a little stream and he has some more water. He goes on south.

He picks up another stream and grows some more. Day by day he picks up streamlets, brooklets, rivulets. Business is picking up! He grows as he flows. Poetry!

My friends, here is one of the best pictures I can find in nature of what it seems to me our lives should be. I hear a great many orations, especially in high school commencements, ent.i.tled, "The Value of a Goal in Life." But the direction is vastly more important than the goal.

Find the way your life should go, and then go and keep on going and you'll reach a thousand goals.

We do not have to figure out how far we have to go, nor how many supplies we will need along the way. All we have to do is to start and we will find the resources all along the way. We will grow as we flow.

All of us can start! And then go on south!

Success is not tomorrow or next year. Success is now. Success is not at the end of the journey, for there is no end. Success is every day in flowing and growing. The Mississippi is a success in Minnesota as well as on south.

You and I sooner or later hear the call, "Go on south." If we haven't heard it, let us keep our ear to the receiver and live a more natural life, so that we can hear the call. We are all called. It is a divine call--the call of our unfolding talents to be used.

Remember, the Mississippi goes south. If he had gone any other direction he would never have been heard of.

Three wonderful things develop as the Mississippi goes on south.

1. He keeps on going on south and growing greater.

2. He overcomes his obstacles and develops his power.

3. He blesses the valley, but the valley does not bless him.