Arizona weekly enterprise., 1888-07-21
LIGHTS UNDER sUsReLs.
The Great Herd of Copyists-Faith fir
 Ones Self-Persistence.

The Great Herd of Copyists-Faith in
 Ones Se1f-Persistence.
 If your faith in your power, your con fidence in yourself, or your idea or plan are destroyed or weakened by the first sheer or voice of opposition it meets, you are hiding yourself and your light under the busheL You will remember that a large proportion of the world are mere copyists. They do only what others have done before them and only what they have learned from others. They oppose and sheer at every new idea, and after ward applaud it and use it, when the man or woman who will not allow their light to be hid under the bushei force it into notice and success. In days past the great herd of copyists sneered and ridiculed the idea of steam as motive power on land and sea. So they did with the electric telegraph and the tele- phone. So 1t will be with hundreds of new ideas, new inventions and new pow CTS to be developed in the near future.
 These ultra conservative deadweights in every business, art or profession, do not like changes. They are welded to their rut. They don't want to get out of it. To do so makes them homesick. Besides, 1t hurts their business. They want to jog on in the 'tgood old way"- in the stage coach instead of the railroad, in the ''sailing packet" instead of the steamer. They oppose the new as naturally as rats and earwigs oppose the entrance of light to their underground habitations, and for similar reason. The light annoys them. It drives them off. It ruins their business. They 'love darkness better than light" Hence, they want your light ''under busbeL"
 If you allow them to keep your light under that bushel they will keep you under 1t also. They will keep you al- ways in the background. If the first Napoleon had not by force of will ridden over the objections of the veteran marti- nets who opposed his new methods of warfare, he would never have triumphed at Marengo and Austerlitz. If Cyrus w. Field had not consistently kept his mind centered on the project of the ocean cable despite sneer, obstruction and failure after failure, 1t might not have been laid today. The glow of every new light upon ths world is always the work of one man or very few men against the many. Three or four men in California, years ago, built the Pacific railroad. They first kindled their light in dingy Sacramento grocery. They kept it lighted and also kept pushing it to the front, while others were indifferent, or dared not take hold of such an undertak- ing.
 You had no need to buster or bully your light to the front. It is not the force of physical effort or speech that will carry it there and keep it there. It is the silent force of persistent determi- nation, bent on one single aim. When you are temporarily overcome and tired out through the opposition of the dead weights and earwigs who love darkness, fall back on yourself and the power be- hind you. Leave the crowd. leave all not in sympathy with you. Go to your room, seclude yourself. Sleep, and be- fore you sleep. demand, pray, desire more power to cope with opposition. It will surely be given to you. How, we know not, but you will enter on the contest to- morrow with renewed strength, and the silent power you gain in this way will, of itself, work results for you.
 In the past thousands of flights have by this dead weight, run in rut, live in a rut and die in rut sentiment and crushing out force. been hidden under bushels and died out under bushels. Actors of genuine humor and talent are today playing in third rate theatres o1 accepting inferior parts in first class ones because they have allowed sheer or op- position or a more or less failure to drag their minds into that permanent dis couraged. disheartened attitude which IS always saying: What's the use of try ing? Luck's against me-I'm bound to fail. anywayr' On the heels of this comes drink, to ''drown care."
 So it is with thousands of other actors in all the parts of life. Their own per manent state of mind is the real and only force which keeps their flight under the bushel." They use their own force against themselves. They expend it in talking and complaining to others. They have no knowledge or faith in the fact that mind decided and determined on a purpose at all times and in all places-a mind that fights off the mood of despond- ency and Encouragement as it would fight off mad dog-carries and uses the greatest of all powers to keep it's light shining and keep it ever in the front Prentice Mulford in New York Star