The Washington herald., 1916-10-08
ely High. !"
BY oRIsoN SWEET MARpEN.

Ely high is the general order to the aviators
of the allies in the European war The bird
men" are instructed when reconnoitering over
the enemy's lines, to keep their aeroplanes at
great elevation, up beyond the danger zone, away
from rifle balls and shrapnel and from the enemy
aircraft guns.
Ely high" applies to us also. 1t warns us
to keep rising soaring aloft to near our ideals
striving to keep then always in plain sight, for
from too great distance they may become
blurred and indistinct.
We are often surprised at the wonderful sue
cess of those, about US compared with ourselves,
and do not realize that it was due to their
larger, their higher and clearer ideals.
Dwelling much in the soul of things, living
in the IDEAL tends to sharpen the faculties, to
refine the life. \ If we neglect this and live
wholly a material plane our lives will become
is finest and most delicate and exquisite in our
nature, closely allied with sentiment, and
when we live wholly the material plane Our
natures tend to become marblezed, hard, unsym-
pathetic and unIesponsive. People who live much
in the ideal are fresher, more youthful, more
sympathetic; their natures are more plastic to all
that is beautiful and good and true
Ideals lift US from the curse of commences"
Never in the worlds history has there been
a greater revolution in the worlds ideals than
is taking place right now and never before did
America have such opportunity to shape the
worlds ideals it has today.
Christ said, "If be lifted up l will draw all
men to Me" The great thing is to lift up our
ideals, ever to carry them before us.
Fortunate is the man who has desire for
goodness, natural attraction for what is worth
while, a longing to reach up and to reach out.
There is hope for the man who is always
looking up and working up, for the who
lives in the ideal
Never allow yourself to dwell on your weak
ress your failures, your unhappy condition. Hold
firmly the ideal of your efficiency, your COM
potency, the conviction that you were made for
health, success and happiness, and struggle Wig
orously to attain that which will help you to
realize this condition.
I 1t is the ideal that raises the effort The
holding Of the vision keeps the ambition from
sagging and the arm from firing.
If you have a lofty sentiment ard high
ideal, if ycu struggling up as we'll as on, you
will ultimately win. Your goal always lies in the
direction o: your strongest desire. II you arc
dead in earnest, doing your level best to match
your vision with reality, YOU may be that
somewhere, some time the way will open, how
ever dark it may seem to you,
Opportunities will come to the determined
aspiring soul who has that courage, grit and PEI
slStcncy which never gives up, but :hey will
never come to the weak, discouraged, 1r faint
hearted man woman without high ideals.
There is perhaps nothing else which makes a
Grudgery of life, and curses existence 50 much az
low-flying ideals. Unless a man aspires unless
he looks up he rises but little above the com
monplace. There must be an upward tendency in
his life, a struggling toward the light, or ex-
ha f,,tI1o r., I'll
of expansion in the mentality, not only a push
ing ahead, but pushing upward as well, or t.c
career must necessarily be a disappointment.
This soaring tendency is the leaven which saves
the life from deterioration, which prevents it
from becoming stale and common.
Without this upward tendency there will be
no enthusiasm; life will be flat and insipid
Think big and you will be big-that is, you
will be larger than if you think otherwise Think
yourself small and contemplate, and you will
be small and not even respect yourself The
habit of thinking of ourselves as grand, sublime,
of having lofty conception of our possibilities,
Of imagining ourselves as being commanded by
the Almighty to do great work on this earth,
of thinking of ourselves as not only human, but
divine, because product of divinity, will
help US wonderfully to grasp the higher meaning
of life and do the thing worth while If YOU
have such a lofty conception of yourself, you
are not likely to grove1 in mediocrity or in vicious
practices
Copyright 1861