Soul Culture

Improvement Era Vol. XX MARCH, 1917 No. 5

Soul Culture By Wm. A. Hyde, President of the Pocatello Stake of Zion

Soul culture is a big topic, especially so when we apply the broad conception of the meaning of the word soul, as that in man which is called physical, and that which is called spiritual, when joined in one. This body, then, and this mind or this spirit, which you please to name it, is the soul of which we shall speak. Dealing with this subject is made easier by the ready access to illustrations and analogies from other branches of human education, where men are culturists by trade or profession, and especially from that distinct and noble calling, agriculture. There is a supreme argument for soul culture in these facts that in the study of plant development, science has enabled man to take inanimate things, that, so far as we know, cannot feel, and certainly cannot express a feeling, and add to their beauty, their strength, their quality or their fragrance. Tiou have made new markings on the lily, new colors in the rose, new fiber to the potato; have robbed the cactus of its weapons, and produced a multitude of apples. Then you have taken inanimate creatures which, while they feel, cannot intelligibly express their feelings, and have added, if not to their intelligence, at least to their beauty, efficiency and value. And if agriculturists have done this with these lower forms of life, certainly that much and more can be done in the development of the highest order of animals, man. In this culture, young man, I speak not of the education of the schools, for I do not know the first accepted principle of

*This article was suggested by remarks given by the author before the student body of the Idaho Technical Institute, and is with much appreciation dedicated to that master boy culturist, our genial, spiritual, enthusiastic friend, Oscar A. Kirkham.

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pedagogy, but I am to reveal to you secrets of nature, learned from inanimate things; and these secrets, if you wisely follow tliem, will enable you to take yourself in hand as a Burbank might take you and evolve yourselves into higher types of men. Come with me to the potato field, let us smell the moist earth awhile. When this tuber is to be improved, the most perfect example of its kind is found. It must be subjected to examination, and its defects noted, and the step we are to take in its culture, must remove these defects wholly or in part, and the type be thus advanced. There must be a close analysis of the plant, and nothing is surer, young man, than that this must be done in your case, before you may proceed. No one can so well make this analysis as yourself, for if you are honest, none will know yourself so well as you. Happy the man who can sit apart from himself as would a double, and see himself. Would we could do as Strickland W. Gililan so originally says

Watch Yourself Go By

Just stand aside and watch yourself go by; Think of yourself as "he" instead of "I." Pick flaws; find fault; forget the man is you, And strive to make your estimate ring true. Confront yourself and look you in the eye Just stand aside and watch yourself go by. Interpret all your motives just as though You looked on one whose aims you did not know; Let undisguised contempt surge through you when You see you shirk, O commonest of men! Despise your cowardice; condemn whate'er You note of falseness in you anywhere. Defend not one defect that shames your eye Just stand aside and watch yourself go by.

So when the time for this examination comes, I beseech you for the purpose, to sit in the humility of sackcloth and ashes, and question your traits as they stand in array before you. No egotist can analyze himself. "Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit, there is more hope for a fool than for him." If he were not made perfect, he can never become so. Be honest, then, steel your heart to bear some shame, and when you come from the judgment chamber, your traits will be known in their true relation to your soul. In the beginning, grant this, which I have not proved, that the basis of a great soul is courage. Let this be the foundation of the character you are analyzing. Thus we proceed: Have you been courageous? Answer, my heart. And from — that place within me, where sits my conscience that arbiter of my life, whose one hand clasps the Infinite, and the other lays

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— hold upon mortality comes the answer: "I have not always faced the front with steady hand and eye. I have appeared to myself small in the presence of men no larger than I. I have not strength to meet extremes of heat and cold, love and hate. 1 am timid, as if each hour I faced a criticism. I am self-conscious, when my eyes should be upon the world." The judgment: "You are no more than 60 per cent of what a strong man ought to be. Have you been honest? Answer, soul. And from the heart comes the reply: "with my butcher and grocer, yes; with myself, no. Agift I made to charity was mere advertising. I find that but few right motives have underlain my acts. I permit the wrong conception to be made of things that I have said. By silence I have committed falsehood." I blush to write down 50 — per cent half honest. Are you pure minded? Answer, my soul. And the heart makes reply "My lips have sometimes been soiled from within. :

I have smiled at a coarse jest. I have looked with pleasure upon improper things. I fear that my soul is stained." In shame I write down the judgment. Purity, 40 per cent. Have you love? Answer, my soul. And the heart gives answer: "I love my kin, I love my close chums, and less deeply my friends, but as to that broad passion which includes hu- — manity, I have it not I cannot feel deeply for them." Judgment: My hunting dog loves as broadly as you. In the prime clement of the soul, you are but 50 per cent. Are you genial and optimistic? The answer comes: "I do — not radiate I am not warm toward men. I smile feebly and laugh never. The world looks dark to me, and I see in it little hope for mankind." Then have you not found the sweet spring of life, thou pessimist; 40 per cent of what you might be of joy to yourself and others. Modesty, stand forth. How fare you? The heart answers: "I love the gaud and tinsel. My soul delights in my bright colored slippers, and in the embroidered pansies of my hose. I have forgotten the homespun of my grandfather, and he would blush if he saw my trousers." In modesty you are but 40 per cent. So these, and a score of others of my soul's retainers, I call up one by one and judge them just as the culturist rates the markings on the plumage of a fowl, or the form and color of a peach or plum. And, now, Burbank, when you have estimated your plant, what do you do? Spread on more fertilizer only? Turn on more water only? No; there is a mating, and a crossing, and a forming, and by %he subtle secrets you have not revealed to me,

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yon take from earth, and air, and sun, from fellow plant and pollen, and you bring an improved plant-being into the world. So now, my Soul, I have done with generalization I have done — with dreaming. I have weighed you. I have scaled you, and you are to be hammered and built anew. Here is the judgment, read it as you sit in the dust

Courage 60 per cent. Honesty 50 per cent. Purity 40 per cent. Love 50 per cent. Hopefulness 40 per cent. Modesty 40 per cent.

You are not half a man. Now, this very day I must begin to build up my weak places. I am engaged in battle, but not behind ramparts and ditches, for this is no trench warfare. Courage, in the campaign this month, you are upon the firing line. Gird up your loins, we must meet the world this day as a man ought. What man was created better than you? Were you not made the equal, under the law, of every other man? Have you not royalty within you? Who has better right of kingship? So, today, my soul meets its fellowman with unflinching eye; suffers disappointments and pain at night, upon the battlefield, as I doff my armor, I am a happy man for I have warred and conquered, and thus I climb. Today a victory, tomorrow a temporary repulse, but day after day, through the month and year, ever faring upward.

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Here is the judgment, 40 per cent purity! Come, my 60ul. we go forth to battle today. Courage has taught me that I must not mask my eyes, I must see. I cannot stop my ears, I must

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hear. Today I look up, I see the tree tops, the hills, and God's expanse of blue. I hear voices I never heard before. If oath or vulgarity come to me, they sadden me, and I shudder. little A child pleases me, for it is pure. I pity the painted woman and look at her with changed eyes. When I come to my tent at night, the light within my heart is glowing. There is a fire upon Voices in my heart are singthe altar in the Holy of Holies. ing. Tomorrow I may fail, but the next day I remember my former victory and mount again, and so on and up I climb invisible stairs:

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— This is the judgment 50 per cent half-and-half honest! — Come, my soul, we will be true today. The butcher and the grocer have long since been paid, now let me have a noble equity and justice within me. Today, let me sit in the other man's seat, that I may get values from his viewpoint. Today let motive and act be mother and son with me, and every good act of noble parentage. No dissimulation no half-truths, let — me be what I am at my best in humility and without parade. I come to my tent at night, humbled but victor, so on and up, mounting here, lapsing there, but ever rising, until I would dare to lay open the inner chamber of mind and heart before all men. Come, you pessimist, 40 per cent strong. We go out to conquer today. 'Tis cloudy, but the sun will shine at noon. God holds the curtains of clouds and sorrows in his hands, and he will roll them up. No good act ever was lost. Hope and Faith must rule as they have ever ruled. "Good morning, friend, you're looking well today!" I spend a moment longer than usual with this fellowman. There's time to have a joke and laugh to temper this cloudiness. This town is good, our state the best, this is God's country. I stroke an inquiring dog, and children see and follow me. Men turn their hearts my way, for I

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have radiated. In my tenf at night I dream of the glories of the morrow. Frivolity stands before me condemned. Come, my soul, let — ns meet the world today gravely and soberly and I gird myself to meet men as I never met them before. I see in the grave eyes of public men, the burdens borne by giants, for they are bearing Atlas loads upon their shoulders. I see a heroine in the bent form of a washerwoman. The sad face of a newsboy enthrals me. This life is serious, earnest, in every moment of it a battle is fought. The groans of the wounded it has never been my high privilege to hear before; in my heart, I wish that I might have some pain, and the very thought ennobles me. In sympathy with my brother man, today I have become co-partner with our common Father. I return to my tent at night chastened. By the end of the month I could be ready for martyrdom if the need appear. Modesty, let us see the world today in better guise! My soul vows to live the law. I am abashed that I should dare to enter into competition with the beauties of Nature. This mountain side, with its Autumn leaves, this brook with its pebbles, are far more beautiful than I, with all my finery. This girl, with flying limbs and tangled hair, animate, quickened nature, has made me envious. My heart approves and says the only beauty :

is that of Nature, for art is only art as it is governed by her laws. I shall be a better man henceforth, for I have found the source of beauty. And one by one I marshal these and a score of other powers singly, and discipline them by the stern hand of truth. Set over against humanity are high types, just as the agriculturist has his perfect types of beast or vegetable. I do not forget that as the type of grain is perfected, the seed selected lies buried in the warm earth twelve days, that it lives out its grassy youth seventy days, that it grows golden through the Summer's heat twenty days, and that only in nature's evening, the ripening Autumn, I see what my work has done. So now, my soul, I shall have the patience that is given to the seed while I guide, and mould and form you. There will be hours of waiting, days of disappointment, but I have learned from the quiet plant the lesson of time. This great hope ever lies before me, as the greatest goal for which man ever struggled, that some day I shall marshal my powers, not singly, but in companies And if a man by courage !

alone shall walk the street, and men for that one quality respect him ; if by optimism alone, he draw men to him ; if, for his honesty alone, men seek and trust him, and put their fortunes in his hand; if, for his purity, he become a protector; if, for his