Trench and camp. [volume] (Augusta, Ga.) 1917-1919, 1918-01-30
x.-lF I WERE Fl / WOULD MAKE
SOME PERMANENT, AMICABLE
ARRANGEMENT WITH MY
CONSCIENCE,

SOME PERMANENT AAlCABLE
ARRANGEMENT WITH MY
CONSCIENCE.
Cod, Duty, Death and Moral Respons-
Utility are huge facts which no life can
escape. They are the eternal SphinXeS
by the road of every mans existence. He
must frame some sort of an answer to
them.
1t may please the reader to know how
1 have answered them. 1t is very simple.
1 am familiar, to some extent, with
of mankind. There are certain points
common to every decent religion, for in
every kind of church you are taught to be
honest pure minded, unselfish, reYerent,
brave, loyal, and the like.
These elements of religion may be
called the Great Common Divisor of all
faiths.
This G. C. D. is my religion. It is
perience has winnowed out for me, 1t Is
my religion. And | think | glimpse what
Emerson meant when he wrote that ''all
good men are of one religion"
And the matter can be reduced to yet
palmer terms. There is but "one thing
needful, and there's no use being care
full and troubled about many things"
That one thing is to do right
TO do rigth and not wrong will save
any mans soul, and if he believes any
doctrine that implies doing wrong he is
lost
So, let a man of twenty one resolve,
and keep his purpose that, no matter
what comes, no matter how mixed his
theology may be. no matter what may be
he rewards of wrong doing, or the perilS
and losses of right doing, he will do right;
then. if there is any just God, He simply
has to save that mans soul, and il there
is any moral law in the universe, that
man must sometime, somewhere, arrive at
his inward triumph his spiritual victory
and peace
And the corroHary Of this is that if [
have done wrong the best and only way
to ic M
gin to do right. If any man viii stick to
this make il his anchor in times of storm,
his pole-star in nights Of uncertainty he
will cast out of his life that which is
Iifes greatest eneny-Fear. He need
not fear man nor woman, nor govern
ments nor mischief makers, nor the devil
nor God He will be able to say with the
accent of sincerity that word of William
Ernest Henley, to me the greatest spir-
itual declare on in any language:
Black as the pit from Pole to Pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my uncOnquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
] have not WINGED nor cried aloud
Beneath the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
It matters not how straight the gate,
How charged with punishments the
scroll,
| am the master OF my rate,
l am the captain of my soul.
Let me repeat that [ have not been
telling what l did with the implication
that the youth OF twenty-one would do
we'll to follow me. l did not do all these
things. Far from it! | wish l had. |
only say that if / were twenty-one, as
now see life, I would do as I have here
suggested But perhaps I would not. /
might go about barking my shins and
burning my fingers, making idiotic eX-
periments in the endeaVor to prove that
was an exception to all the rules and
knew little more than all the ancients.
So let not the young man be discouraged
if he has committed foflies; for there
seems to emerge peculiar and vivid
wisdom from error, from making an ass
Of ones self. and all that, more useful to
ones own life than any wisdom he can
get from sages or copybooks
In what / have written [ have not tried
to indicate the art of getting on" or Of
acquiring riches or position. These usu-
ally are what is meant by success. But
success is Of two kinds, outward and in
ward or apparent and real Outward sue
cess may depend some upon what Is IN
you. but it depends more upon luck. 1t
is a gambling game And it is hardly
worth a strong mans while Inward and
real success, on the contrary, is not an
affair Of chance at all, but is as certain as
any natural law. Any human being that
viii observe the laws of life as carefully
as successful business men observe the
laws Of business will come to that in
ward poise and triumph which is lifes
happiest crown, as certainly as the stars
move in their courses
I would, therefore. if I were twenty
one study the art of life. 1t is good to
know arithmetic and geography and book
keeping and all practical matters, but 1t is
better to know how to live, how to spend
your day so that at the end of it you shall
be content. how to spend your life so
that you feel it has been worth while.
"How do you wish your hair trim
med, sir?" asked the barber of the
324th
"Over the top" remarked the top