Self-Control, XIV. Failure as a Success

SELF-CONTROL.* BY WILLIAM GEORGE JORDAN

XIV.— FAILURE AS A SUCCESS. It ofttimes requires heroic courage to face fruitless effort, to take up the broken strands of a life-work, to look bravely toward the future, and proceed undaunted on our way. But what, to our eyes, may seem hopeless failure is often but the dawning of a greater success. It may contain in its debris the foundation ma- terial of a mighty purpose, or the revelation of new and higher possibilities.

Some years ago, it was proposed to send logs from Canada to New York, by a new method. The ingenious plan of Mr. Joggins was to bind great logs together by cables and iron girders and to tow the cargo as a raft. When the novel craft neared New York and success seemed assured, a terrible storm arose. In the fury of the tempest, the iron bands snapped like icicles and the angry, waters scattered the logs far and wide. The chief of the Hydro- graphic Department at Washington heard of the failure of the ex- periment, and at once sent word to shipmasters the world over, urging them to watch carefully for these logs which he described; and to note the precise location of each in latitude and longitude and the time the observation was made . Hundreds of captains sailing over the waters of the earth, noted the logs, in the Atlan- tic Ocean, in the Mediterranean, in the South Seas — for into all

waters did these venturesome ones travel.Hundreds of reports were made, covering a period of weeks and months. These ob-

*From Self-Control; its Kingship and Majesty. Copyright 1889 and 1905 by Fleming H. Revell Company.

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servations were then carefully collated, systematized and tabu- lated, ard discoveries were made as to the course of ocean currents that otherwise would have been impossible. The loss of the Jog- gins raft was not a real failure, for it led to one of the great dis- coveries in modern marine geography and navigation. In our superior knowledge we are disposed to speak in a pat- ronizing tone of the follies of the alchemists of old. But their failure to transmute the baser metals into gold resulted in the birth of chemistry. They did not succeed in what they attempted, but they brought into vogue the natural processes of sublimation, filtration, distillation, and crystallization; they invented the alem- bic, the retort, the sand-bath, the water-bath and other valuable instruments. To them is due the discovery of antimony, sulphuric ether and phosphorus, the cupellation of gold and silver, the de- termining of the properties of saltpetre and its use in gun-powder, and the discovery of the distillation of essential oils. This was the success of failure, a wondrous process of Nature for the high- est growth, — a mighty lesson of comfort, strength, and encourage- ment if man would only realize and accept it. Many of our failures sweep us to greater heights of success, than we ever hoped for in our wildest dreams. Life is a succes- sive unfolding of success from failure. In discovering America Columbus failed absolutely. His ingenious reasoning and experi- ment led him to believe that by sailing westward he would reach India. Every redman in America carries in his name "Indian," the perpetuation of the memory of the failure of Columbus. The Genoese navigator did not reach India; the cargo -of "souvenirs" he took back to Spain to show to Ferdinand and Isabella as proofs But the discovery of of his success, really attested his failure. America was a greater success than was any finding of a "back- door" to India. When David Livingstone had supplemented his theological education by a medical course, he was ready to enter the mis- sionary field. For over three years he had studied tirelessly, with all energies concentrated on one aim, —to spread the gospel in China. The hour came when he was ready to start out with noble enthusiasm for his chosen work, to consecrate himself and his life to his unselfish ambition. Then word came from China that the

"opium war" would make it folly to attempt to enter the country. Disappointment and failure did not longdaunt him; he offered him- self as missionary to Africa, — and he was accepted. His glorious failure to reach China opened a whole continent to light and truth. His study proved an ideal preparation for his labors as physician, explorer, teacher and evangel in the wilds of Africa. Business reverses and the failure of his partner threw upon the broad shoulders and the still broader honor and honesty of Sir Walter Scott a burden of responsibility that forced him to write. The failure spurred him to almost super- human effort. The mas- terpieces of Scotch historic fiction that have thrilled, entertained and uplifted millions of his fellow-men are a glorious monument on the field of a seeming failure. When Millet, the painter of the "Angelus," worked on his al- most divine canvas, in which the very air seems pulsing with the

regenerating essence of spiritual reverence, he was painting against time, he was antidoting sorrow, he was racing against death. His brush strokes, put on in the early morning hours be- fore going to his menial duties as a railway porter, in the dusk like that perpetuated on his canvas, — meant strength, food and medicine for the dying wife he adored. The art failure that cast him into the depths of poverty unified with marvellous intensity all the finer elements of his nature. This rare spiritual unity, this purging of all the dross of triviality as he passed through the fur- nace of poverty, trial, and sorrow gave eloquence to his brush and enabled him to paint as never before, — as no prosperity would have made possible. Failure is often the turning-point, the pivot of circumstance that swings us to higher levels. It may not be financial success,

it may not be fame; it may be new draughts of spiritual, moral or mental inspiration that will change us for all the later years of our life. Life is not really what comes to us, but what we get from it. Whether man has had wealth or poverty, failure or success, counts for little when it is past. There is but one question for him to answer, to face boldly and honestly as an individual alone with his conscience and his destiny: "How will I let that poverty or wealth affect me? If that

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trial or deprivation has left me better, truer, nobler, then, poverty has been riches, failure has been a success. If wealth has

come me and has made me vain, arrogant, contemptuous, un- to charitable, cynical, closing from me all the tenderness of life, all the channels of higher development, of possible good to my fellow- man, making me the mere custodian of a money-bag, then, wealth has lied to me, it has been failure, not success; it has not been riches, it has been dark, treacherous poverty that stole from me even Myself." All things become for us then what we take from them. Failure is one of God's educators. It is experience leading

man to higher things; it is the revelation of a way, a path, hither- to unknown to us. The best men in the world, those who have made the greatest real successes look back with serene happiness on their failures. The turning of the face of Time shows all things in a wondrously illuminated and satisfying perspective.

Many a man is thankful today that some petty success for which he once struggled, melted into thin air as his hand sought to clutch it. Failure is often the rock-bottom foundation of real success. If man, in a few instances of his life can say, "Those failures were the best things in the world that could have happened to me," should he not face new failures with undaunted courage and trust that the miraculous ministry of Nature may transform these new stumbling-blocks into new stepping-stones? Our highest hopes are often destroyed to prepare us for better things. The failure of the caterpillar is the birth of the butterfly; the passing of the bud is the becoming of the rose; the death or destruction of the seed is the prelude to its resurrection as wheat. It is at night, in the darkest hours, those preceding dawn, that plants grow best, that they must increase in size. May this not be one of Nature's gentle showings to man of the times when he grows best, of the darkness of failure that is evolving into the sunlight of success. Let us fear only the failure of not living the right as we see it, leaving the results to the guardianship of the Infinite.

If we think of any supreme moment of our lives, any great success, any one who is dear to us, and then consider how we reached that moment, that success, that friend, we will be sur-