The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1888-10-20
HOW TO &c Happy.



Never whip your brain. All high
pressure is dangerous. Study to think
as easily and as quietly as you breathe.
Never force yourself to learn what you
have no talent for. knowledge without
love will remain lifeless manufacture
NOT a living growth. Be content to
be ignorant Of many things, that you
may know one thing we'll, and that the
thing which God specially endowed you
to know. II requires fire to fuse the
materials Of thinking, no less than to
melt the iron in the foundry.
But remember this--however strong
you may be, physically, to strike a
blow, and however sharp, intellectual
ly, to recognize fact and discern q
difference, your success in the game OF
life depends on the serious culture
which you give to the third formative
force In human character-your moral
nature; and Of the rightful supremacy Of
this element the comprehensive ex-
preston is found in the single word,
love. On this all prophets, poets and
philosophers are agreed. st. Paul says:
'Love is the fulfilling of the law"
Burns says:
The hearts aye, the part aye,
That makes us RIGHT or wrang.
And Goethe more largely
The bazaar on splendid trash,
Tempts the buyer to spend his cash.
He who goes to learned college
Comes home crammed with empty knowledge;
But II true bliss you wish to brook.
Learn to live in quiet nook;
II your every vein you strain,
To fill the mind with various lore,
'Tis we'll; but how to use your lore.
The better wisdom-this to gain,
You must knock at another door.
Nor have you far to search and seek;
Let the God within you speak;
Love all things that lovely be,
And God will show his best to thee.
How is thisp For two plain reasons
-O because it is only by loving or
sympathetically laying hold of that
which is good in others, that we can
enlarge the narrowness and enrich the
meagerness of our individual selves;
(2) because without love man is a
self-confined mortal and can not stand
In any cooperative relation to social
whole, composed OF mutually depend
ent parts. Therefore, let every man
measure his value as social unit not
30 much by his power OF knowing, as
by his capacity of loving. Love, no
doubt in reasonable world, must al-
ways be accompanied with knowledge;
love with knowledge is wisdom; but it
is better for all parties in the social sys-
tenn to have much love with little
knowledge than to have much knowl-
edge with little love.
But how is love to manifest itself?
In the simplest way possible. BY car
rying out in practice what, as an ethi-
cal thinker and a Christian, you must
believe in theory; by treating every
man as a brother-as good as yourself,
and perhaps little better. Stamp out
that bias OF mind, so natural to all
finite creatures, which leads them to
overestimate their own good quail
ties-real or imaginary-and UNDER
estimate those Of their neighbor.
Avoid criticism, especially that species
of it which delights in finding faults.
Seek in all things to enjoy what
is good, and let the evil drop; and, II
you will judge, begin with yourself.
following Schiller's rule: ''Judge your
self severely; your neighbor leniently."
Further, seize every opportunity OF
performing acts of kindness, however
small, to your fellow-beings, especially
to your interiors { Rom. xiii, 16). Be
like the sun, ever-giving and ever
dispensing. witching blossoms out Of
the buds, by the light and warmth Of
its rays, and even, as Shakespeare has
it, kissing carrion without offense.
Love. in its common form, exhibits
itself in an interchange of kindred
sentiments and kindly deeds among
equals; when directed towards inferi-
ors. it is elevated into reverence, and
eliminates in worship. There may be
much amiability, but no true greatness
OF character without reverence. As
we gain notion of the grandeur Of the
physical world by looking from the
low ground up to the sky-cleaving
chains OF the Alps or the Andes, so our
measure of moral greatness grows by
the admiring contemplation Of what is
above us. This is what Plato meant
when he called wonder philosophic
affection. Though any fool may cape
at an air balloon, the man who does
not cherish q habitual wonder for the
grandeur of the universe is like a deaf
man who does not hear the thunder, or
a blind man who can not see the SUM-
Young Man.