The Washington herald., 1914-03-28
4 MUST"
~ EMORY ,. HAYNES.

not. The thing must be done. This
is the form that the end often takes
We are ordered to do the impossible, II
is do it or die. So, then, that is the
way multitudes die. And probably ono
way is as good as another. yet We are
never quite sure that we cannot dc
what we must do. Often in trying we
conquer and live instead of being con-
|quered and dying.
George Washington must get out oi
Valley Forge and go on. Abraham
Lincoln must hold on and hold on. Gen.
Grant must prevail in the Wilderness
Lincoln told him so. 1t was not asked
of the general whether he could. or
thought he could. He was to do the
thing. His duty was, then, to do it or
move on out OF this world.
Such was the grand death of every
soldier boy who must keep up on the
march, and when he tried to the last
ounce of his strength and could not,
why that was the appointed way for him
to die.
We say: Il viii do the best can. y
But that is not enough. Duty is not
measured by ability. We may be mis-
taken in our supposed duty. Some one
may blunder and lay on US what he has
no right to lay. But that is another
story. If the task is rightfully ours
the task is the measure and not our
strength.
Nor do We know our own ability. This
hard Must is benehcent thing. One
must keep ahoat, or drown. Then one
discovers that he can swim. Did any
country boy ever learn to swim, really
swim, until he got into deep water and
must swim. The astounding resources
of the mind appear when we must think
out a way. Courage comes when it
must Come. Daring may be for play,
boldness from conceit. But courage is
that strange force that meets danger
Danger is no play. 1t is a condition
from whence there is but one escape,
the fortitude that will do or die.
All through life we meet one Must
after another, and rightly so. The in
exorable is our schoolmaster. Not one
day in school will do. Day after day the
school presents hard things. In after
life the boy of yesterday will miss the
textbook and the set lesson. But out
of the air, spoken by invisible school
masters, is the stern and unavoidable
necessity. The morning may be calm,
but before noon there is something that
must be done or a whole business will
fail, home will be lost, career blasted
for lifetime.
Older men get accustomed to these
Musts. They may be adjourned till one
can think out a way. They generally
can be. But they are in the path and
there is no escape. Fortunately in
actual life these absolute things occur at
intervals. Yet not always. Often we
must larnent 1T never rains but it
pours. Everything comes against me in
a day." But even that makes no differ
ence with the memorable law.
Frequently ten things must be done
at once. Then man becomes a giant.
Everybody has had to be a giant, some
time. And when we have taken arms
against a sea of troubles and by op-
posing end them" it is pretty nice feel
ing. We did il. Our friends ask US
how and we reply that we scarce know
ourselves, only we saw that they all had
to be attended to and somehow We did
it all"
After all, there are fewer responsible
ties than one would suppose. 1t is when
we do get into them that we find most
obstacles are in the shell. Once break
through and matters take shape This
would is not put together on the i'm
possible plan. The Creator did 'the i'm
possible when He made the world out
Of nothing. But the plan thereafter is
dovetailed in the order of the possible
Man is not foreordained to defeat,
but to victory. 1t is marvellous how
gracious kind nature is to the man who
is in dead earnest. 1t is the dodgers
who find this world harsh and hard. The
shall cat the good of the land.
What must be, can be. Though the
soldier could not live through the bat
tie, he could pass the flag from his
dying hand to another, who could live.