The Crown of Individuality. III: At the Turn of the Road

The Crown of Individuality. BY WILLIAM GEORGE JORDAN.

III.— At the Turn of the Road. In walking along a mountain road there is sometimes a sudden, sharp turn where, by seeming magic, the narrow path is transformed into the entrance of a vast panorama of Nature. We seem stunned as we involuntarily stop short, rest and surrender to its majesty. The view exalts us, glorifies us, inspires us. We have a new, high, restful ground of contemplation. We have a new test of values, a new base of interpretation, a new relation to life.

The hamlets and villages in the valley bear a new, strange dignity— they have become integral parts of a great picture. The colors of trees and flowers blend from mere single effect into a wondrous harmony. We are seeing the birth, life and death of a river as an eagle might watch it from his nest on the crags. The fields of a hundred farmers become one great farm. And far be- yond, we can see the great ocean — whitening the shore with its

billows leagues away. The complex has become simple; the absolute has now become relative; the isolated has become associated; the trifling great, and the great greater; the detail losing none of its individuality has an added value like a jewel set in a crown. There is a finer sense of justice in our judgment, the ozone of the higher levels seems tonic to our soul, a sweet peace fills our heart. As we look backward tlfe narrow path, doled out to us in

• From The Crown of Individuality. Copyright, 1909, by Fleming H. Re veil Company.

WILLIAM GEORGE JORDAN, Author of "Self-Control; its Kingship and Majesty," "The Crown of Individuality," etc.

THE CROWN OF INDIVIDUALITY. 211

installments as our weary feet toiled up the long ascent, now stands out clear— for its entire length. We begin to see it as a type of our whole life, as the angels must view it with greater charity from the higher wisdom of their truer perspective. Rest, retrospection, reflection, realization, and revelation are giving us a fine new view-point, a new chance to get our moral bearings, to tune our life to bring out its highest, purest notes— at the turn of the road. Humanity tends to take narrow views of life and its prob- lems instead of occasional great, broad sweeps. It is nearsighted-

ness of the soul that permits the unworthy to throw the really big things into the shadow. We hold some trifle of care or worry close to our vision as a jeweler with an awning over his eye peers into a watch. We let one sorrow be the grave of many joys, one ingratitude smother many of our kindnesses struggling for expres- sion, one weakness within us sap the strength from many virtues.

We need the' bracing inspiration, the revealing illumination of the larger vision. The turn of the road, in its highest sense, is not a place to stay— we have to fight the battle of life. It is only an

arsenal of supply — not a battlefield of action. The beginning of the new year is a natural, sharp turn in the road of time. Here we may wisely rest awhile, and in the peace and quiet and calm of self-communion see the long stretch of the road of a single twelvemonth. It is built imperishably of short steps of living — from moment to moment. Many of the purposes for which we labored and struggled in our narrow, close, selfish absorption, seem poor, petty and puny when seen from the turn of the road. The structure of some effort we thought marble, now is shown in its sickening sham as a hasty affair of show and pretense, made of staff that could not stand the wear and tear and test of time. It was not built on

square lines of character, of the best that was in us. It lacked

strength, sincerity, simplicity. The material was made up of policy and selfishness put together on hurried plans. It was a failure; it cannot be rebuilt, but it is worth only a passing regret and a real- ization of the lesson of its non-success— at the turn of the road. We now see how many times the paralyzing hand of procrasti- nation touched the good deeds we meant to do, the roseate dreams

212 IMPROVEMENT ERA.

we longed to transform into actualities. We wished to do, and we wanted to do, but we did not will to do. The fault was not in conditions but in us. — We were not equal to opportunities. It is a false philosophy that teaches that opportunity calls only once at any man's house. It comes with the persistency of an importu- nate creditor, always in a new guise, and clamors for admission, but we may be — too busy to answer the bell.

Habits that we had determined to master, to bring into sweet harmony with our highest self, may still stalk large and insolent before us. They may seem to taunt us that they are stronger than we. They were never made in a day and cannot be mastered in a day. An hour may begin the making of a habit; an hour may be- gin its breaking. Time, with heart and mind united in determin- ation, can conquer any evil habit or create and confirm any good one. The look backward from the turn of the road should inspire us by making vivid to us how much of what we feared never came to pass. The tyranny of worry, that dominated us and held us for months trembling slaves to a weak fear, that dissipated our energy, dulled our thinking, and darkened our mental vision, at the very hours that should have given us fullest control of our best, is now seen as an enemy to true individual growth. It

means a harder fight in the unending battle against worry and grief. The broader view of life reveals that the only great things in life are trifles; that what pained us most, saddened our hearts, and turned our hopes to ashes were only trifles — cumulat- ing into overwhelming importance. A cruel word, an unkindness, a little misunderstandingmay darken a day and separate us from one we love, or may petrify us into a mood of doubt and despair. The most joyous moments of life, the high lights in the pictures of memory, may, too, be only trifles of kindness, fine expressions of love, simple tributes of confidence and trust that make the heart smile — as we remember. Knowing the right is useless unless— we practice it. Realiz- ing our weakness is profitless unless — we seek to change. We may even grow so comfortably reconciled to faults and failings as to accept them as finalities, to confess them and even boast