When the Jews, exiled from the Holy Land, died afar off among the pagans and the persecutors, they had themselves laid in their tombs, with their faces turned toward Jerusalem! If your strength betrays you, if it is not for you, during life, to enter into perfect peace, to be delivered from certain enemies of the soul, from certain humiliating miseries that set your best will at defiance, if you must fall in the mêlée, fall at least with your face turned toward Jerusalem.—Charles Wagner, "The Gospel of Life."
(1014)
FACTS, IGNORING
Thomas Reed Bridges, D.D., says:
Macaulay tells the story of a young
scientist in India who became possest of a
microscope. Beneath it he placed a drop of
water from the Ganges. This is, as you
know, the sacred river of India. He looked
and beheld an infinite pollution. Then in
his rage he broke the microscope in pieces
and threw it from him. The Ganges ran on
carrying its infection to the sea, but he would
not see it. Foolish, you say. But not more
foolish than the way in which many people
close their eyes to the facts of their own
life. They have not the courage to look at
the truth. They prefer to live all their days
in a fool's paradise. In their sincerest moments
there is some insincerity. Their self-examination
is nothing more than self-defense.
It is possible to put a favorable construction
upon almost any action and this
men do when dealing with themselves.
(1015)
FACTS, RELIGIOUS
Dr. Chas. F. Aked said in a recent sermon, concerning the multiplicity of modern faiths and fads:
I have not been in this country twenty
months yet, but I am quite certain that there
have been twenty new gospels launched upon
an astonished public during that time. I remember
one that was to take possession of
the church to win the world to Christ inside
of the next twelve months. The publisher
sent me a copy of the book for my opinion,
and I wrote him that I did not care two
straws about that sort of thing, but before
the ink in my signature was dry a friend
called on me and I asked him how Dr. So
and So's scheme was getting on. "Oh," he
said, "he is about through with it."
I said, "Why I have only just got his book from the publisher." "That does not make any difference," said my friend. "But," I said, "how can he have got through with it already?" He said, "Have not you been here long enough to know how easily we take a thing up and how much more easily we drop it again?" (Text.)
New gospels come and go, but there
is one gospel that abides.
(1016)
Failings of Christians—See Cynic Rebuked.
FAILURE
Caligula once fitted out a fleet at great expense,
as if to conquer Greece or to accomplish
some other great undertaking, but the
ships returned laden with pebbles and cockleshells,
only to receive the scorn of all.
So many a life that is well equipped
and has glorious opportunities flattens
out into insipid nothingness.
(1017)
See Defeat; Neglect; Success in Failure;
Sorrow for a Lost Cause.
FAILURE LEADING TO SUCCESS
It is part of the compensation of life that nearly every dark cloud of disaster or disappointment has a fringe of light under it. An instance of this is seen in the career of Senator Beveridge:
It was a joke that sent United States Senator
Beveridge, of Indiana, into public life
instead of into the army. He took the competitive
examination, but at a critical moment
he laughed at another boy's sportive
remark and failed to pass by the smallest
fraction. We are told by one chronicler that
young Beveridge was so badly upset when the
news reached him on the street that he had
failed to pass that his distress was mirrored
on his face so plainly that a passing acquaintance
stopt to ask him the cause, and
was himself so touched that he forthwith
offered to advance him the money necessary
to start him in college.
(1018)
Failure Made a Success—See Sagacity Supplementing Science.
FAILURE ONLY SEEMING
These cheering lines are from Success:
There is no failure. If we could but see
Beyond the battle-line; if we could be
Where battle-smoke does ne'er becloud the eye,
Then we should know that where these prostrate lie
