The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-12-30


| Those New Year Resolutions.
Tersd- Comments for December 81
Things / Want to Do Better Next
Year Phil. 3: 12-14
BY WILLIAM T. ELLIS
The newspaper cartoonists are often
perplexed to find subjects for draw
ings. but the first of tho new year pro-
vides them with an unfailing and ever
fertile theme in the new year resolu-
tons So much sport has been made
of this practice that it is in danger
of being laughed out of court And
that would be q calamity For while
we smile with the fun makers, let us
remember that the making of resolu
lions is fundamental to life. If it We're
not for the new resolutions Of earnest
souls this old world would soon perish
of dry rot. A great resolution in the
heart of q potentially great person is
bigger thing than a sky-scraper
building or a locomotive factory. 1t is
greater than the pyramids. All the
hopes of all the years are centered in
the resolutions that are framed in indi-
Vidual hearts. That way has come all
the progress that the race has made.
Purpose must precede performance;
resolutions go before all revolutions
The masses would still be in ignorance;
the poor would still be subject to over
lords the slaves would be still in bond
age; the wicked would abide unstirred
and unsummoned in sin were it not
for the good resolutions of noble men
and women. Let~no man despise reso-
Iutions; they are the stuff of which
souls are made.
The heights of excellence are reached
by the stairs called '-excelsior:" the
better is the only route to the best
Usually. in our land and time. life
is made better by being made simpler
Our existence is too much cluttered
up with things, like the living room
that is too full of useless and unlOvely
bric-a brac. Then most attractive and
refined homes are those which are
most simply furnished. The life of
beauty and power is the one that is
simplest and most direct and most hui
man, being freest from the frills of an
over cOnVentiOnalized civilization. An
essential part of the art of true pos
session is the art of doing without.
Henry van Dyke has tersely put
life creed that may be written upon
the heart of this time of new resolu-
tons:
-Four things a man must learn to do
If he would make his record true:
To think without confusion clearly;
TO love his felloW-men sincerely;
70 act from honest motives purely:
To trust in God and heaven securely"
Men learn to be carpenters. machin-
lists. doctors and lawyers; and women
learn to be stenographers and house
keepers and dressmakers and book
keepers; but the greatest art Of All
the art of living, we scarcely study It
all Most of US merely drift through
the years. We give scant conscious
thought to the business of living with
people. and Of employing our own
powers to their best advantage. A good
resolution for this time is the purpose
to study the business of better living
and to study it as diligently as one
would study geometry or German.
Again says van Dyke:
Life is an arrow-therefore you must
know
What mark to aim at. how to use the
Then draw it to the head and let it
THE Christian ife.'' says Amos r.
Wells. lis like rowing up stream: if
we cease to make progress we are sure
to drift backward
Il could not help hearing the con-
versation of two women behind me in
the train today" said a wise and busy /
woman recently; and it wa9 most de- |
plorably empty. There was the con
slant repetition of petty facts and in /
consequential statements. and a |
meagernesS of language which merely /
reflected the meagerness of ideas How /
empty must be the lives of such per +
SOnSl What those persons needed I
was some charging interest in life be
it woman suffrage. Pekingese dogs /
foreign missions. social settlement I
work the poetry of Browning the col
lection of stamps. scientific photogra- /
ply. modern chicken anything
so long as it would lift them out Of (
their vacuous self-centeredness The
wagons Of most of our lives are sadly !
mired or dust-srimed we need to hitch |
them to some star
New year resolutions should be prac- |
teal as well as noble. 1t is scarcely /
wise for young woman to purpose in /
her heart to become a Joan of Arc !
when her greatest immediate need is |
to bake better bread and to comb her |
hair more tidily in the mornings Some
young men are resolving to become |
great when they should the rather be |
determining to become utterly relia bic /
in their present tasks. Some folk are /
dreaming of fame to come when their
first need is to be a little more pleas |
ant. DO We next thynge, is a good |
old motto.
More Of Christ means more of life |
altogether There is a profound line !
of reasoning in the truth that the en- |
trance of Christ into a life quickens |
all the faculties and interests and en-
larges the perceptions and sympathies |
They live well who live by their
sympathies in the lives of other per- |
sons The measure of a soul is the |
extent Of its unselfsh interests.
You think you are thinking. NShen !
really you are only rearranging your |
prejudices." said one clever preacher |
to another. Original mental opgra-
lions are rare. Some Of US have about !
as much intellectual individuality as
a photograph record We seldom in
d,,Ierc il, the l11.1ir.t- of solid lnnsac1n-