Nothing else is worth so much to you as your unqualified endorsement of yourself. The approval of the “still, small voice" within you, which says to every noble act, "That is right," and to every ignoble one, "That is wrong," is worth more to you than all the kingdoms of the earth. It matters little what others may think about you or what the world may say; it makes no difference whether the press or the public praises or blames; it is by your own honest judgment of yourself that you must stand or fall.
Many a man who is looked upon as successful, lauded in the daily papers, sought after by society, and looked up to by his wealthy neighbors, knows perfectly well that he is a fraud. His heart never beats but it disapproves of his deception. Every time he is reminded of his success, — in dollars and cents, — his conscience pricks him. Every time he goes through his factory or mines, the wan faces, emaciated forms, starved and cramped lives whose blood is on every dollar of the huge fortune which their ill-requited toil has enabled him to amass, sternly accuse him. They tell him in thunder tones, that, instead of being the great success which the world thinks him, he is a gigantic failure, and that his wealth has been acquired literally at the cost of human lives. He realizes that their accusations are just. He has murdered the opportunities, crushed the ambitions, and prevented the adequate education of hundreds of young toilers who are little better than his chattel slaves. Forced into the battle of life to help eke out the miserable pittance earned by their fathers or mothers, or both parents, they have never known childhood or freedom or, happiness.
Can such an employer, no matter how seared his conscience, be happy when he meets the glances of those disappointed eyes, and when he contrasts the miserable surroundings of those unfortunate children who labor in order that his own little ones may be surrounded with luxury? Can he enjoy his wealth when he rides in his luxurious carriage, accompanied by a coachman and a footman, past the miserable homes of those poor people? Will not the pleading eyes of those unfortunate children, whose spiritual lives he has crushed, and who have never had even the ghost of a chance to develop their dormant possibilities, haunt his dreams? Will not those accusing faces rise up before him at the banquet table, in the midst of the applause of the multitude, and condemn him?
There is no alchemy by which the man who has not earned his own approval can extract real happiness and true satisfaction from either his money or his position.
Be sure, then, that you have your own approval first and last. If you resolve that you will never forfeit confidence in yourself, and that you will never take chances of your own disapproval, whatever you have or do not have, you will have a bulwark which will be your stay whether in prosperity or in adversity.
At the least murmur of disapproval of the "still, small voice" halt and ask yourself what you are about to do and whither you are going. There is something wrong, — of that you may be sure. You must remedy it immediately. Don't parley with the cause of your disturbance; don't try to compromise with it. Such a course will prove as dangerous as that of a mariner who, in the midst of a storm, should insist upon holding the needle to a certain point by force because he wanted to sail in that direction. To try to influence the compass would be to wreck his ship upon the rocks or shoals in his path. There are human wrecks all along the ocean of life who have disregarded or tried to compromise with their compass, — conscience.
To keep your self-approval you must be honest. It is impossible to be dishonest and not stand condemned before the bar of conscience. No matter how slight the departure from truth or integrity, no matter how trifling the deception or untruthfulness (if any deception or untruthfulness can be considered slight), you have been tampering with the needle and, if you persist in such a course, you will not reach the harbor you seek.
You cannot sell shoddy for all wool, thirty-two inches for a yard, thirty quarts for a bushel, or domestic for imported goods; you cannot cheat your employer of time or service or by not giving the best that is in you without compromising with your conscience.
If you keep your self-approval, no matter what other things you may lose, you will still be rich. You may make a fortune or you may lose one; you may live in a beautiful home or in a cheap boarding house; you may wear rich garments or cheap ones; you may ride in a fine carriage or you may walk; you may keep your friends or you may lose them; you may have the good
Opinion of the world or its contempt, but, if you have never tampered with your conscience, if you believe in yourself, if you approve of your life, if you have been honest and earnest and true, and if you can look yourself square in the face without wincing, you will be happy and successful, even though the world should brand you as a failure.
How many people who are living in fine houses, riding in elegant carriages, and spending money like water trying to enjoy themselves, would give half, yea, some of them all, of their wealth in exchange for their bartered self-approval.
It is said that the basest criminal feels a sense of consciousness of justice, and says "Amen" in his heart, while he feels the words, “That is right, that is right,” quivering on his lips, when the judge pronounces his doom. This voice is his own best self which never forsook him, and which, had he obeyed its warnings, would have brought him to victory as surely as the sun brings flowers and fruitage to the earth.
No matter how poor a man is as long as he is progressing, however slowly, his life is healthy and he has hope. But the moment a man ceases to progress, when he ceases to grow higher, wider, and deeper, when he has ceased to acquire power to get on, then his life becomes stagnant and mean.
In the evolution of the saint there is a perpetual striving, — a divine dissatisfaction.
The noblest character would soon degenerate if it should lose the love of excellence. This is the mainspring of all great character. This passion for excellence is the voice of God, bidding us up and on, lest we forget our Divine origin and degenerate to barbarism again. This principle is the guardian of the human race. It is God's voice in man; it is the still, small voice that whispers "right" or "wrong" to every act; it is the gem which the Creator dropped into the dust when he fashioned us in His own image.
Bury a pebble and it will obey the law of gravitation forever. Bury an acorn and it will obey a higher law and grow. In the acorn is a vital force superior to the attraction of the earth. All plants and animals are climbing or reaching upward. Nature has whispered into the ear of all existence: "Look up." Man, above all, should have a celestial gravitation. The ambition of every true man should be to be more, not to have more.
No man can be mentally, morally, and physically healthy until his ambition is satisfied. There must be contentment, satisfaction which comes from the consciousness of being in one's place where all of the faculties pull, — not a few of the weaker ones. The emergencies must be very exceptional, the environment extremely rare which will justify you in trying to get a living where you hear the highest and best in you constantly reminding you that you are sacrificing them. But there is a healthful tonic which comes from the healthful exercise of the strongest thing in you. There is a satisfaction, a sense of completeness, of wholeness, of fitness of things which can never come from living-getting by the weak faculties.
It is impossible to do an unmanly act, however secretly, although no one in the world may see or know it, without a corresponding deterioration of the character. Isn't it a pitiable sight to see a healthy, strong, able, educated man trying to get a living by qualities which he should suppress, — by cunning, long headedness, greed, planning and scheming to outwit others, to hypnotize them by lying advertisements, by false statements. It seems strange that people should not choose vocations which call out their highest and noblest qualities, which give the largest education and the broadest culture as well as a living, instead of choosing that which will warp their natures, stunt their manhood, starve all their nobler sentiments and blunt their finer qualities. When we learn that a vocation means man-making even more than living-making then we shall begin to live.
Whatever one may learn from books, whatever from his occupation, whatever from observation, it is probably an indisputable fact that he absorbs more of that which may most properly be called culture, wisdom, or unwisdom, morality or immorality, refinement or vulgarity, chastity or unchastity, from his habitual associates, than in any other way, or in all other ways put together.
“We take the color of the society we keep,” says Geikie, "as the tree-frogs do that of the leaf on which they light, or as Alpine birds change with winter or summer. The east wind strips the spring's blossoms; the warm south wind opens them into clouds of pink. Ask Shame and Guilt and they will tell you they were made what they are by Example and Intercourse; and, on the other hand. Honor and Usefulness commonly hasten to own that they owe everything, humanly speaking, to someone they have copied."
There are, of course, exceptions to this as to every other rule, but they are exceedingly few. We are, for the most part, mirrors, and can reflect but what we have seen, — the ugly and the beautiful in life. We are but whispering galleries which give back only the echoes of what we have heard.