The Indianapolis sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1880-1904, 1885-03-01
THE LAW OF DEVELOPMENT
philadelphia Post

Those who incline to place a low esti.
mate on their own powers should remem-
Der, first of all, that they cannot Judge
correctly. No one knows himself suffi-
GENTLY well to presume or to despair;and
there is as much presumption in declar-
ing we can do everything as in Boosting
that we can do nothing.
The truth is, that we are happily not
called upon to make any such analysis or
decision at all. Certain duties appeal to
US as ours, and we should take them up
humbly and modestly, it is true, without
arrogance or boast, yet firmly and cheer.
fully, in the confidence that, if they be-
long to us, we shall acquire the requisite
ability to preform them. One thing is
certain, if we do not try, we shall never
accomplish; and, whether it is the school
boy with a problem to solve, or the
guilty man with a character to retrieve,
If discouraging thoughts of self are al.
lowed to palsy effort, failure must GER
tainly ensue.
And it will be found, the longer we
study the matter, that in reality the only
thing in which we can be said to have
any property are our actions. Our
thoughts may be bad, yet produce no
poison; they may be good, yet produce
no fruit. Our riches may be taken from
US by misfortune, our reputation by NAL
ice, our spirits by calamity, our health
by disease, our friends by death; but our
actions must follow us beyond the grave.
With respect to them alone, we cannot
say that We shall carry nothing with us
when we die, neither that we shall 90
naked out of the world. Our actions
must clothe US with an Immortality,
loathsome or glorious. These are the
disinherited; they will have their full
weight in the balance of eternity, when
everything else is as nothing; and their
value will be confirmed and established
by those two sure destroyers of all earth
ly things, time and death.
Every event that checkers our lives,
every experience that we pass through,
may be treated in these two ways. Either
We may receive it passively, as something
to be accepted and remembered only for
itself and its transient effect upon our
happiness, or we may enter into its real
meaning, learn its offered lessons, and
pass on with an accumulated power of
life. The difference is something like
that which We see in two workers, one of
whom has learned certain method of
working, to which he is bound, and be.
yOnd which he cares not to look; the
other has mastered the principles of his
occupation, appreciates its value, knows
the points to be attained, and applies his
thought and energy to compass them in
the best way, using whatever method he
finds most efficaciOus.
Whoever looks into the principles of
life will find in them a unity which
binds together all persons, all events, all
industries, all joys, all sorrows, and
interests, and enables him to use them
for the great end of improvement. They
are not ends in themselves, but means to
something higher; they are nol life, but
methods by which we are able TO accu-
mulate life. The child looks at each
lesson as separate task to be learned
for its own sake; but the mature student
sees running through all his studies and
connecting them, the higher purpose of
mental development. So the shallow
and thoughtless look at each circum-
stance of life as something to be well
coined or regretted for itself alone; but
the wise man or woman sees that through
them all runs deep principle, the devel-
opment of true manhood, and that only
as that principle is upheld and cherished
can the real value of external expert
ences be extracted.