The Washington herald., 1912-10-06
To Make the Most Of Yourself,
Conquer Things That Tempt You.
ByC. S. MADDOCKS.


cuse Of the child. who has neither experience
with the world nor developed reasoning pow
ers. For the man, good sense 10 always cali
ing out that he pront by the one and use the
other.
The man who refuses to get acquainted
with his temptations refuses to consider
them, is like one who refuses to get acquaint-
ed with the conditions Of his business. II
he thus refuses and lets everything go on in q
hit or miss way, We know what happens.
His experience has given him just as definite
records Of the results Of certain behavior
as though they had been put down In black
and white on a ledger. yet he refuses to
look at these records. He likes his follies too
much. He gives excuses that show he is
very much like the small girl whose mother
had told her to say, Get thee behind me.
Satan" When she was In trouble later her
mother reminded her of this Injunction, and
she replied. I did tell him to- but he got
behind me and pushed me right in"
Strong drink, gambling. definite vices, bad
as they are. have no more power to under
mine a mans moral character than the
selfshness and sluggishness that may grow
upon him in his easy chair. where he con-
siders himself immune from temptation. The
easy chair coddles and softens his flesh.
Stamina never literally means backbone
Real stamina means hard firm flesh and
timber joints, so far as It means anything
Of the physique. and these areSthe things
that a man loses as he grows older. not be-
cause he is old. but because he has not re-
sisted many subtle Ht.le lazinesses, the
meanest sorts Of temptations.
~ d
Easy Chairs for the Mind.
As there are facilitating easy chairs for
the body, so there are easy chairs for the
mind, chairs that make 1t too comfortable
too much al ease In Zion. As man goes on
in life he needs to make a conscious effort 10
keep every nerve and muscle Of his mind
alert instead Of being bolstered up and
wrapped in warm woolens, as 1t were, and
from this situation TO complain that thefe
is no place for the old man In today's civiliza-
ton.
The man in his easy chair or In some COM
Portable mental bath may not indulge in any
OF the VIGOROUSLY deteriorating vices, for
which reason he may be tempted into a self
righteousness that is as great a sin of Its
kind and to be as vigorously resisted by the
broad minded and sensible as any Of the
others. Its effects are even more far reach
ing and indirectly harmful to society than
the vice which confines its effects mainly to
his own life.
The evil, and even the suffering a self
righteous man may cause is impossible to
estimate. In thousands OF cases 1t Is great for
self-righteousness and inhumanity generally
60 together. The eelf-righteous man may
do worlds more harm by what he will not do
than the really wicked man by his doing
the wicked man who does what harme him.
self mainly.
The bodily temptations are hard enough to
overcome. but those Of the mind are far hard
er. for We give them no name and We hard
ly realize what they are. These temptati tons
take two forms: the temptation not to use the
mind at all. to shirk when 1t is necessary to
do so. to make no attempt to keep it In health
by exercise, and the temptation to use It In
the wrong way. Any one can think out the
details OF these temptations, which may come
in many ways to different individuals.
Driving Out Wrong Thoughts.
The man Of brilliant mind shirks creative
exercise by putting of and putting off, or
by some fast and furious diversion. Strangely
enough when he once gets at the creative
work he is as eager to do II as he was earlier
not to do It
There are many strange momentary temp
tations which drive a man to do or not to do,
as the circumstances may he. Men have
committed suicide on a moments impulse
when a nights sleep, that sovereign remedy
for the smaller ve1atons Of life and come
of the large. would have saved them.
Such acts. however, usually come because
a man has harbored the thought OF suicide.
The temptation to do 30 has not been re-
sisted. There are a great number Of little
temptations which come to US as Just a
thought. Then we allow the thought to repeat
itself and dwell with US instead Of resolutely
putting It out Of our minds. Unless we have
some great purpose in life 1t is sometimes
hard to do so, but when We can determinedly
turn our mind to the greater thing We are
safe. It will less often and less often recur,
If We have been harboring 1t, and none Of
its fellows will have much chance Of push
ing their way In.
The temptation to physical indulgence may
get into a mans very bones. but in the early
days Of indulgence such temptations come as
a thought, which we may name the devil,
If we cannot think Of some other name to fit
1t is by the recognizing Of these temptations
as things as definite as q flesh and blood
enemy or temptress that We can most sure
~ arm ourselves against them.
Iorld of Science.