New Britain herald., 1916-03-21
The Man Who Mcditatcs.
Boston TranScri,t


 The other day, in congress, a re- publican leader began speech with these words: "AS l. was meditating in my garden last summer" Never mind what else he said, or what he meditated; his thought may not have inspired him to wisdom; we note merely that the congressman was in his garden, thinking about public affairs, and that months later his reflections there inspired his public utterance. And almost upon the very day when Mir. Mann made this speech, Col. Winston Churchill, returning to the house of commons from the front to express his views there upon the conduct of the war, remarked that "hs mind had be- come clearer since he had been in the trenches" Watching, waiting there, with long intervals between the alarms. and the cold sky hung cmptilN above the trenches and the silent rows of motionless. armed men the English statesman found the opportunity for reflection which had come to the happier American 4n his garden. In each case, the mo- ment of reflection was so highly val ued that the speaker made public acknowled cement of it in his address, as d DOOn to men ne owed thought which he expressed.
 To think, in ones garden; is it not a rare privilege, and one which few American men of action either seek or appreciate? Generally speaking. meditation is out of our character. and gardens are to be gazed at quito objectively, or shown off to a visitor or merely stocked with rare flowers and succulent vegetables. Who thinks of sitting down on a bench in the garden at the close of the day, the dog at ones feet and a pipe be- tween ones lips, in full subjective sympathy with the spot. to ponder and dream and let ones thoughts ripen and glow with the reddening berries? The measure and type of our wisdom is far from this; it is to think in a rush and decide in a hurry; to keep in the hurly burly, and be "ouick under the hat,' as they say in the west. Tn other words we insist upon having the tumult always with us, priding ourselves upon being able to think Tn the midst of it-even by the aid of It. If we seek relief from it. 1t is in more tumult; from the Legislative melee. the stock exchange. the keyed
 
 ble of clubs. the mob on the beach, or the swift clatter of the musical comedy As an escape from all this, the philosopher might even be glad Of the hour of nothingness in the trenches, awaiting the next shower of shrapnel.
 For there is not merely content ! ment. but strength. order reason and mature judgment in the hour of me- ditation at the days end in the gar den. Washing gton shaped his great purposes for his country as he rode his horse alone through the jungle paths of the Dismal swamp or over the slopes Of the Alleghenies, or brooded over the brimming meadows of the Potomac from his lawn. Burns thought out his appealing poems as he followed the plough over the fields of Aire, and Emerson ponder ed the great thoughts which inspire men of action today while he sat watching the ripples chasing one another over the surface of Goose Pond The logic of the process is plain. Effective thought and cogert 1 reasoning require concentration and l calm analysis, and neither one nor the other is possible amidst uprOar and distraction. shut out the world, 1 or that part of it which crowds and ] confuses the brain; replace the ur- roar with healing silence; put Ma l tures orderly suggestion where there l was chaos, and we may have thought
 worth proclaiming. Any people which l ceases to mediate ceases to be great. l With hustle and chatter we are i1y- ! ing waste our inheritance of WIS | dom from the fathers. We need notl,- 1 ing so much as to learn how to medi- l tate.