Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1908-08-21
TO AID OTHERS.
By Rev. George T. Bowling.


You do not want your life to be
cipher. You want to help some one and
you do not know how. You have very
little money to give, perhaps none at
all very little influence, very little OF
anything. But you have more than you
think. You have the possibility of the
most valuable equipment that any man
ever had. Here was Ezekiel. He was
a youth just starting in the noblest OF
all callings, that of a preacher. Yet
God held him back until he had cult
waited what you may cultivate. He had
made all intellectual preparation. He
had absorbed the message that he was
to deliver to those poor captives down
there by the waters of Babylon. In his
oriental manner of expressing it, he
had 'eaten" the roll on which the mes
sage was written. Still God held him
back. There was one more thing which
was absolutely necessary. He had to
put himself in their place. Then, but
not till then, he was prepared for his
work.
What is the greatest underlying need
in the commercial world to-day? 1t is
not simply wages. Men are having
larger wages than they have ever had
in the history of mankind. 1t is more
sympathy. 1t is a greater willingness
on the part Of those in position and
power to enter into real appreciation
of the trials and anXieties Of those
whom they control. 1t is greater Will
lngness on the part of the employee to
realize that his employer as we'll as he
has sleepless nights, too, and thus, just
as often as he can, to give him credit
for at least trying, amid many perplex-
tiles of his own, to do his best.
Why is it that one preacher will
reach a multitude and the other will
not? That is question which it is
seldom easy to answer, because there
is no secret of success unless we use
the nebulOus term personality" and
that does not answer. For who can
tell us what personality is? The ''se-
crets" are multiplex, and many Of them
escape analysis. But among them all,
in the successful preacher we shall al
ways find this: When he looks out
over his congregation on Sunday morn
ing, he has compassion on the multitude
as Jesus did; he puts himself in their
place. No man with a heart in him
can be formal or cold or unimpressive
when he can say to himself at such a
time and feel it: Here is a company
of struggling men and women, each one
the center of history, each one in
some undefinable way longing to be bet
ter than he is, each one sitting his own
sob and fighting his own battle. And
each one of these trouble-toss men
and women is silently pleading for
some word of courage and hope" That
is the secret" if there is any secret.
He sits where they sit
And this same secret of influence
runs all through life. Whether our pull
pit is In the church or the workshop,
the schoolhouse or the home we can
never really help others until by the
power of just such sympathy as the
Master Himself felt we have put our
selves in their places. Thus one teacher
in the school is more successful than
the other They may have the same
equipment and often have, but the first
has learned in spirit to become little
child to sit where they sit.
You want to help somebody. Then
learn to sit where he sits. The last
thing that the good Samaritan gave was
his money.