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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 DUTY-DOING 
 

 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 DUTY-DOING 
 
 BY 
 
 H. CLAY TRUMBULL 
 
 NT ^ 
 
 OCJ 12 1889 p y 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 JOHN D. WATTLES, Publisher 
 
 1889 
 

 &t*t 
 
 Copyright, 1889 
 
 BY 
 
 H. CLAY TRUMBULL 
 
 /Z-ifrM 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Lessons from one man's experiences and 
 observations will not be of value to all. But 
 lessons from any man's experiences and ob- 
 servations will be of value to some. No man 
 stands, in his feelings and sympathies, for his 
 entire race. But every man, in his sympa- 
 thies and feelings, stands for a class. 
 
 Hence it is, that whatever truths have made 
 a profound impression on a man in the prog- 
 ress of his life-course are likely to make a 
 correspondent impression on others who are 
 like him, if he can bring those truths with 
 any vividness before them. And when a 
 series of related truths have excited interest 
 in their detached separateness, they will 
 hardly fail to excite fresh interest in their 
 exhibited relation to one another and to a 
 common central truth. 
 
 5 
 
6 PREFACE. 
 
 The essays in this volume are an outcome 
 of their writer's observings and experien- 
 cings in his varied life-course. They were 
 received with interest as editorial contribu- 
 tions in the pages of The Sunday School 
 Times, while appearing there, one by one, 
 during a term of ten years or more; and 
 their republication has been urged by many 
 who desire them for preservation in a per- 
 manent form. They are now presented in a 
 new light, in a logical order for the elucida- 
 tion and emphasis of a truth which is com- 
 mon to them all. 
 
 The gaining of the thoughts of this vol- 
 ume has not been without cost to its writer. 
 His hope is that the considering of them 
 will not be without stimulus and profit to 
 
 its readers. 
 
 H. C T. 
 
 Philadelphia, 
 
 August 14, 1889. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I, PAGE 
 
 What is Duty? 9 
 
 II. 
 Having a Base-Line 17 
 
 III. 
 Impressions of the Hour an Unsafe Guide . . 27 
 
 IV. 
 No Circumference Without a Center 37 
 
 V. 
 
 The Duty of Believing Something 45 
 
 VI. 
 The Duty of Forgetting Self 55 
 
 VII. 
 Being Wholly the Lord's . 65 
 
 VIII. 
 Always on Duty 73 
 
 IX. 
 Always Ready for Orders 83 
 
 7 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 X. PAGE 
 
 How to Recognize the Master's Orders ... 93 
 
 XI. 
 
 The Sin of Worrying 107 
 
 XII. 
 The One All-Dividing Line 117 
 
 XIII. 
 Doing as One Has a Mind To 125 
 
 XIV. 
 Making Drudgery Divine 133 
 
 XV. 
 The Practical Gain of One Thing at a Time . 141 
 
 XVL 
 What if Duties Seem to Conflict? 155 
 
 XVII. 
 Temptations in the Path of Duty 167 
 
 XVIII. 
 Despondency Through Well-Doing 177 
 
 XIX. 
 Resting Between Heart-Beats 189 
 
 XX. 
 The End is Not Yet ......< 199 
 
L 
 
 WHAT IS DUTY? 
 
 There are two sides to every word and to 
 every thought, — an attractive side and a re- 
 pellent side. In the case of some words and 
 their correspondent thought, the attractive 
 side becomes the more prominent one in 
 their popular estimation, while in the case 
 of other words and thoughts it is the repel- 
 lent side which has chief prominence. The 
 terms "love" and "duty" are illustrations 
 of this truth. " Love " is a winsome thought, 
 with a suggestion of gentleness and warmth 
 in its meaning. "Duty" has an unwelcome 
 aspect, with a suggestion of a harsh and cold 
 manner in its demandings. Yet the under- 
 lying thought of love and of duty is a 
 thought common to both. Love is the 
 "royal law" of duty; and duty at its best 
 is only the right exercise of love. 
 
 9 
 
10 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 All duty, God-ward and man-ward, is 
 summed up in the injunction, "Thou shalt 
 love." And he who is controlled by a spirit 
 of love has a supreme purpose of doing his 
 duty. The essence of love is the holding 
 dear, or the counting precious, that which is 
 brought into comparison with other objects 
 of desire. The essence of duty is the per- 
 formance of that which is rightly due in a 
 given case. Love is the recognition of 
 another's due. Duty is the rendering to 
 another of that which is his due. Love is 
 due to God supremely; and, under God, love 
 is due to every creature of God, to one's self, 
 to one's fellows, and to one's country. Duty 
 is the obligation of being and doing toward 
 God and toward God's creatures that which 
 love demands as the due in every case. 
 
 He who gives God his simple dues does all 
 that love for God would prompt to, and all 
 that God asks any creature of his to do to- 
 ward him. He who loves God can never be 
 satisfied with anything short of rendering to 
 God his simple dues. He who gives to his 
 
DUTY-DOING. II 
 
 fellow-man that which is due to his fellow- 
 man does all for his fellow-man that God 
 requires or that man could desire in that 
 direction. Duty-doing is, in fact, the limit 
 of God's requirements of man, or of man's 
 possibility of right performance, God-ward 
 or man-ward. 
 
 " Duty," in its old English form, is " duetee ; " 
 it is the due, or the debt, which one owes to 
 another. It may be a debt of money, a debt 
 of service, a debt of praise, a debt of sym- 
 pathy, a debt of pity, a debt of gratitude, a 
 debt of affection. It may be a debt of coun- 
 sel, or a debt of censure. In any case, it is 
 simply a due. It is to be paid, not as an act 
 of grace, but as an act of justice and right. 
 That which is rightly due to ourselves, is a 
 debt which ought to be discharged by us in 
 its time and place. We have no right to 
 neglect this duty because of a supposed duty 
 in any other direction ; for " duties never con- 
 flict;" there are never two duties which are 
 both supreme for the moment to any indi- 
 vidual. That which is rightly due to our 
 
1 2 D UTY-KNO WING A ND 
 
 neighbor, is a debt to our neighbor which 
 cannot be avoided or evaded through any 
 plea of a superior duty to ourselves. If it 
 is his due from us, he is entitled to it as his 
 due. And herein is the duty of loving our 
 neighbor as ourselves. That which is rightly 
 due to God is a debt to God, and, as we owe 
 everything to God, we owe it to God to be 
 his wholly and unreservedly; and so our 
 simple duty to God is an obligation to love 
 him supremely, and to serve him gratefully 
 and forever. 
 
 Our tendency is to limit the demands of 
 duty to the requirements of law and custom, 
 instead of extending them to the farthest 
 reach of the obligations of love. We are 
 prompt to admit that it is our duty to pay 
 or to repay money which is due to another, 
 or to perform a service for another which 
 grows out of an existing relation, or which 
 has been agreed upon for an equivalent. So, 
 also, we freely acknowledge the duty of being 
 respectful and courteous and kindly to others 
 within the bounds of conventional propriety. 
 
DUTY-DOING. 1 3 
 
 We would reproach ourselves with a failure 
 in duty if we were to be lacking at any one 
 of these points. But we do not always real- 
 ize that voluntary assistance on our part, or 
 heartfelt sympathy, or outspoken praise, or 
 faithful counsel, or kindly warning, from us, 
 may be another's rightful due, and that, 
 when it is so, our failing to give it to him 
 is as truly a failure of duty, on our part, as 
 would be our refusing to return to him a 
 sum of money which he had loaned to us. 
 Yet because duty is that which is due, and 
 because that which is due is duty, therefore 
 a failure to render that which is due from us 
 is always a failure of duty on our part 
 
 A shipmaster notes a signal of distress 
 from a sinking vessel near him. He sees 
 that the decks of that vessel are crowded 
 with imperiled passengers. They need his 
 help. He recognizes their claim upon him 
 as their only hope of rescue. The assist- 
 ance which they need can be given only at 
 the risk of his own vessel and cargo; but he 
 believes that it is possible for him to save 
 
1 4 D UTY-KNO WING A ND 
 
 them without losing the ship of which he is 
 in command. To his mind, an effort by him 
 to rescue them is their due, and he makes 
 the effort successfully. He has done, as he 
 says, nothing but his simple duty. Ay; but 
 now his due from all is grateful and un- 
 stinted praise; and they who do not join, as 
 they have opportunity, in according him that 
 praise, are as truly recreants to duty as he 
 would have been, had he sailed away from 
 that sinking craft, leaving it with its precious 
 cargo of life to go down to death in mid- 
 ocean. When effort is due, its making is a 
 duty. When praise is due, a failure to praise 
 is a failure in duty. 
 
 Duty often calls to that which is not 
 recognized as duty. A passive neglect to 
 give to another that which is really his due 
 as a benefactor, as a well-doer, as a sufferer, 
 as a needy fellow-creature, is, more often 
 than we are accustomed to consider, a neg- 
 lect of imperative duty. "Withhold not 
 good from them to whom it is due/' — or 
 from them to whom it is yonr duty to render 
 
DUTY-DOING. 1 5 
 
 it — says the inspired Book of Proverbs ; and 
 the same Book, in suggestion of an important 
 phase of duty, adds: "A word spoken in 
 due season," — when duty demands a spoken 
 word, — "how good is it!" In illustration of 
 the neglect of duty by the simple failure to 
 volunteer aid where it is known to be due, 
 the Apostle of Love asks earnestly : " Whoso 
 hath this world's goods, and beholdeth his 
 brother in need, and shutteth up his compas- 
 sion from him, how doth the love of God 
 abide in him?" And no one has been able 
 to answer that question unto the present day. 
 He who does not give to his fellow-creature 
 that which is his fellow-creature's due from 
 him, whether that due be of money, of sym- 
 pathy, of affection, of counsel, of commen- 
 dation, or of personal service, has no right 
 to claim that he is one who does his duty in 
 this life, or whose life is controlled by the 
 love of God. 
 
 We have no right to separate the claims 
 of duty and the claims of love; for they 
 belong together. To one whom we love, 
 
1 6 D UTY-KNO WING. 
 
 there is due the fullest exhibit and expres- 
 sion of our love that is fitting. To whom- 
 soever there is anything due from us, we 
 ought to love to render all that which is due. 
 The law tells us what is our duty toward 
 God and toward man; and love is the fulfill- 
 ing of that law. God asks of us, for him- 
 self or for his creatures, nothing but that 
 which is obviously due from us. We ought 
 surely not to want to render less than what 
 is due, to God or to man. 
 
II. 
 
 HAVING A BASE-LINE. 
 
 In all works of civil engineering, or of sur- 
 veying, it is of first importance to settle upon 
 a base-line — " a main line taken as a base of 
 operations, and on the correctness of which 
 the whole depends." All measurements are 
 made from this base-line. The elevation of 
 the mountains and the depression of the val- 
 leys are noted from this level. The amount 
 of "cuttings" or of "fillings" required to 
 bring a proposed road to " grade " are settled 
 by a comparison with the assumed base-line. 
 In popular topographical, or geographical, 
 phraseology, the base-line of measurement 
 is the ocean's surface. We speak of a moun- 
 tain as fifteen hundred feet high. We do not 
 mean that it towers fifteen hundred feet above 
 its next lower peak, or its surrounding "foot- 
 hills," or the plain from which they spring. 
 2 17 
 
1 8 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 Our meaning is that it is fifteen hundred feet 
 above the level of the ocean's surface as a 
 universally recognized base-line. 
 
 In practical operations of engineering, or 
 of survey, it is customary to settle upon a 
 base-line for the time being, rather than to 
 adopt the ocean level, which may be very far 
 below the face of the region under examina- 
 tion. But the base-line once agreed upon, 
 every measurement must conform to it, or 
 there is no hope of accuracy or success in 
 the operations in progress. Much the same 
 necessity exists in works of art as in those of 
 science. A painting or a piece of sculpture 
 must have its recognized base-line of per- 
 spective or of elevation, or it will inevitably 
 fail of symmetry and apparent truthfulness. 
 And as it is in science and the arts, so it must 
 be in character and conduct. We must have 
 a clearly defined base-line in our minds, from 
 which all measurements are to be made un- 
 questioningly. Without this we are liable 
 to be up in the air or down in the depths 
 without intending or knowing it. Having a 
 
DUTY-DOING. 1 9 
 
 base-line of conviction and of purpose is an 
 indispensable requisite to well being or well 
 doing in the world. 
 
 The common base-line of religious princi- 
 ple is, "Do right though the heavens fall;" 
 or as it is put by the Apostles, concerning all 
 questions about the standards of personal 
 duty, " We ought to obey God rather than 
 men." In any and every emergency where 
 the right is apparent, we are called of God to 
 adhere to the right at every cost to ourselves 
 or to others. " It is a small thing that I live 
 or die; but it is a great thing that I do what 
 is right whether I live or die," said a great 
 general, when tempted to do wrong for the 
 saving of his life. Measuring from that base- 
 line, the level of the path of duty is always 
 distinct. 
 
 To pursue that path at a given time may 
 seem to involve loss to ourselves or to others; 
 it may clearly risk our pecuniary interests, 
 our professional or social standing, our closest 
 friendships, our very life itself, — or, what is 
 far more than all these together, our own 
 
u 
 
 20 D UTY-KNO WING AND 
 
 good name and the welfare of those who are 
 dearer than life to us; but large as this risk 
 may seem, it is not to be compared with the 
 risk of holding back from that path. Unless 
 we then push right on in the face of all con- 
 fronting dangers, our life is an absolute fail- 
 ure; it would be better for us never to have 
 been born. No life is worth saving, no inter- 
 ests are worth preserving, at the cost of wrong 
 doing or of neglected duty. 
 
 So far, there ought never to be a question. 
 The common ocean base-line of God's truth 
 settles these main measurements. But there 
 are times and places when the real point at 
 issue is, What is right? rather than, Shall we 
 do right? To enable us to meet these emer- 
 gencies wisely, we need to fix upon minor 
 base-lines, or "bench-marks," as the surveyor 
 calls them, for our local sphere and for our 
 immediate personal work. Such base-lines 
 can be agreed upon; they ought to be. 
 
 Take, for example, the matter of religious 
 belief. We are sure that the inspired revela- 
 tion of God is a safer guide of our faith than 
 
DUTY-DOING. 21 
 
 any man-made creed or catechism; but are 
 we, therefore, to reject all creeds or cate- 
 chisms as helps to our study or teaching, until 
 we have compassed for ourselves all that the 
 Bible says on the points touched by them? 
 Must we have no theological opinions until 
 we have shaped them freshly from our inde- 
 pendent Bible study ? 
 
 A good base-line to measure from just 
 here would seem to be, that the presumption 
 is in favor of the general theological con- 
 clusions of those Christian scholars whom 
 we suppose to best represent the faith and 
 practice of Christianity; and that it is well 
 for us to accept those conclusions until we 
 find good reason for the conviction that they 
 are manifestly at variance with the word of 
 God. A good engineer newly coming in 
 charge of a piece of road building does not 
 feel called on to re-run all the "levels " of 
 his predecessors, unless he has special reason 
 for distrusting their accuracy. His original 
 presumption is in their favor. When, how- 
 ever, we are sure that the Bible teaches one 
 
22 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 thing and a creed or a catechism teaches 
 another, we are to stand by the Bible view 
 of truth, at every cost of being looked at or 
 opposed as heretics or as unbelievers. This 
 base-line would guard us against bigotry on 
 the one hand, and undue laxity on the other. 
 
 Then again, in the performance of our 
 daily duties, the question often arises, What 
 shall have the first place? A dozen things 
 press at once for attention : which must give 
 way for the others? A good base-line for 
 measuring the relative altitude of conflict- 
 ing claims on one's time was given by an 
 earnest worker to a young man who con- 
 fessed his perplexity on this subject: " First, 
 attend to the thing that you have promised 
 to do, and that you are paid for doing. Next, 
 take hold of the things that you have pledged 
 yourself to do, but are not paid for doing. 
 After this, you can give yourself to those 
 things that you would like to do because you 
 think they ought to be done by you." 
 
 In other words, if you are a pastor, or a 
 lawyer, or a teacher, you have practically 
 
DUTY-DOING. 23 
 
 agreed to perform certain services for your 
 church, or your clients, or your pupils, and 
 a stipulated sum is to be paid you for so 
 doing. While those things press for imme- 
 diate attention, your time is not at your 
 disposal for anything else. You must not 
 respond to a call for outside work, or for new 
 business, or for help to others. Such a call 
 is a temptation, to be resisted unflinchingly. 
 If there comes an hour when something else 
 can be done without conflict with such im- 
 perative claims, attend first to that which 
 already has a promise of your attention. 
 Not until these two classes of claims are 
 satisfied, have you a right of selection from 
 other demands upon your services. 
 
 Recognizing such a base-line as this, many 
 a man would have no hesitation in sticking 
 at his proper business, in spite of multiplied 
 calls on him to go off and "do a great deal 
 of good" elsewhere. But there are emer- 
 gencies when great interests overshadow les- 
 ser ones, and when what would otherwise be 
 a man's duty is no longer binding on him. 
 
24 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 A young clerk might properly be late at his 
 employer's office, if, by stopping back an hour, 
 he could save his mother's life, or rescue a 
 family from ruin. A professional man might 
 be justified in abandoning an interest he had 
 agreed to further, if he found that great 
 wrong would be done to others by his ad- 
 hering to his unfortunate agreement. What 
 base-line will enable one to measure such 
 cases as these? 
 
 The ordinary claims of duty are binding 
 on a man unless the extraordinary demands 
 are such as to justify him in losing place and 
 credit and confidence by his fidelity to his 
 higher convictions. He may conscientiously 
 put an extraordinary claim above an ordi- 
 nary one, but only when he is prepared to 
 take the fullest consequences of his failure 
 on the lower plane. The base-line must show 
 him that the interests he adheres to are ob- 
 viously higher than those he abandons. 
 
 Another safe base-line of personal conduct 
 is, that principle, and not feeling, should be 
 our guide in all our actions. We have no 
 
DUTY-DOING. 25 
 
 right to read our Bibles, and pray, and go to 
 church, and be reverent in speech and de- 
 meanor toward God, and toward all that rep- 
 resents him, merely when we feel like it, and 
 abstain from these observances at other times. 
 We ought to have a right spirit in all such 
 things; but we ought to be right in action 
 whether we are right in spirit or not. And 
 as toward God, so toward our fellows. We 
 ought to be kindly in word and deed, and cor- 
 dial and cheery in manner, toward our loved 
 ones, whether our feelings for the hour prompt 
 us to this course or not. Whatever may be 
 our impulses, or moods, or freaks of feeling, 
 our course and manner should never be such 
 as to give discomfort to those who are dear 
 to us, merely because "we want to be our- 
 selves, you know." It is a great deal better 
 never to be ourselves than ever to be un- 
 kindly, or regardless of the feelings of those 
 whom we love. 
 
 So in the matter of giving, as in that of do- 
 ing. It is not right for us to give, or to refuse 
 to give, merely because we feel generous or 
 
26 D UTY-KNO WING. 
 
 stingy for the time being; nor yet because it 
 is a peculiarly tempting or a peculiarly unat- 
 tractive appeal for aid which now presents 
 itself. We ought to have some plan of giv- 
 ing, some recognized basis of duty in the 
 meeting of every call on us for assistance. 
 We are the Lord's stewards ; and whether we 
 give or withhold, we should do that which 
 we believe our Master would have us do in 
 that particular instance. If we give, it ought 
 to be because we believe that Jesus would 
 disapprove our refusal to give. If we with- 
 hold, it ought to be because we think it would 
 displease him to have us give anything. 
 
 So, also, in all things. In all our convic- 
 tions, in all our actions, in all our benefi- 
 cences, we should take our levels of duty 
 from a recognized bench-mark of principle ; 
 and every such bench-mark from which we 
 measure should be in unmistakable conform- 
 ity with the ocean-level of eternal truth. 
 
III. 
 
 IMPRESSIONS OF THE HOUR AN 
 UNSAFE GUIDE. 
 
 There is no more unsafe guide for us than 
 our impressions of the hour. Yet there is 
 no guide which, commonly, we are readier 
 to follow. What seems to us at the moment 
 the only proper thing for us to do, may be 
 the very thing of all things for us not to do, 
 in spite of our feeling about it. And just 
 here it is that we are most in danger when 
 we think that we are safest. 
 
 If we feel like going off on a vacation, or 
 like sticking at our work year in and year 
 out; if we feel like eating or like fasting; if 
 we feel like going to church or like staying 
 at home; if we feel like praying or Bible 
 reading; if we feel like being sociable, and 
 meeting friends and neighbors cordially, or 
 like shutting ourselves up within ourselves, 
 
 V 
 
28 D UTY-KNO WING AND 
 
 and showing others that we are disinclined 
 to conversation; if we feel like walking, or 
 riding, or reading, or sleeping, — it ordinarily 
 seems to us, that that is the very thing we 
 ought to do just now. Not only is it clearly 
 the most agreeable thing, but it appears to 
 us to be the one proper thing, for the hour. 
 
 And why cannot an intelligent, sensible, 
 right-minded man, a man of principle, and 
 a man well trained in habits of correct think- 
 ing and correct doing, trust his feelings in 
 such matters as these? Is he likely to feel 
 like doing that which he ought not to do; 
 or like refraining from that to which duty 
 should impel him? What safer guide can 
 he have, in matters where a choice is open 
 to him, than his own feelings, his drawings, 
 his impressions of the desirableness and 
 propriety of a course under consideration? 
 How indeed can he be himself and pursue 
 any other course than that which at the time 
 for action seems right and proper, all things 
 considered ? 
 
 Whether a man can be himself or not, it 
 
DUTY-DOING. 29 
 
 is his duty in every emergency and under 
 all circumstances to do what is right, whether 
 he feels like doing it or not; whether, indeed, 
 he can for the moment perceive the right or 
 wrong in the case. And as a great many 
 men have done wrong conscientiously, have 
 done wrong impulsively, have been uncon- 
 sciously swayed from the right by their 
 fears, their affections, and their varying per- 
 sonal interests, it is important to every man 
 that he know what is right, and that he is 
 ready to do it unflinchingly, regardless of 
 his temporary feelings — of his fluctuating 
 impressions and his emotional impellings. 
 As a practical matter, those persons who 
 most steadily do and say what is right in 
 the world are persons who are accustomed 
 to do and say a great deal that they do not 
 feel like doing and saying; a great deal that 
 would seem quite unnecessaiy or uncalled 
 for on their part if they trusted their feelings 
 or their judgments of the hour. 
 
 The highest order of work is not to be 
 compassed by snatches of labor when a man 
 
30 D UTY-KNO WING A ND 
 
 feels like working. In painting, in sculpture, 
 in poetry, in sermon-writing, in essay-writing, 
 in romance-writing, in all brain work and in 
 handiwork of every sort, there is drudgery 
 to be done at times when it goes against the 
 worker's grain to bend down to it unswerv- 
 ingly. And in minor personal habits the 
 man who cares best for his physical well- 
 being is he who eats and sleeps and walks 
 and rides, and who takes hold of his work, 
 and lets go of it again, when he ought to, 
 rather than when he wants to. 
 
 The loveliest and most attractive persons in 
 the world — in home life, in business life, and 
 in society life — are persons who give their 
 time and attention to others generously, 
 cordially, with seeming heartiness, and whose 
 words of sympathy and interest are free and 
 timely, when they feel least like anything of 
 the sort, as well as when they feel just like 
 it. And no greater mistake could be made 
 by a conscientious person than in supposing 
 that it is always better and truer to speak 
 and to act just as one feels, according to his 
 
DUTY-DOIXG. 31 
 
 impressions of the hour. He does best who 
 does what he knows to be best, apart from 
 his momentary feeling on the subject. 
 
 The poorest time in the world to settle a 
 question of right and wrong for one's self is 
 at the moment of temptation, in a pressing 
 emergency. The better time is when one 
 can look at the question coolly, with due 
 deliberation, in the light of Scripture and 
 reason, while self-interest is, as far as possi- 
 ble, kept out of sight and thought. 
 
 The time for a bank cashier, for example, 
 to decide whether or not he ought to aid 
 robbers in the opening of the vault he is set 
 to guard, in order to save his life, is not after 
 he is tied hand and foot, and a revolver is 
 pointed at his head. TJicn he might feel 
 that it would be quite right for him to say 
 or do almost anything rather than to leave 
 his wife a widow, and his children orphans. 
 But if the question presented to him at such 
 a time were settled long before, he could now 
 properly recall his former deliberate and un- 
 biased conviction of duty, and decide on the 
 
32 D UTY-KNO WING A ND 
 
 instant to act against his present impressions 
 of right. Like Lesena, the Athenian heroine, 
 who — fearing that her weakness of body might 
 induce her to disclose under torture the state 
 secrets of which she was possessed — actually- 
 bit off her own tongue that she might be 
 unable to betray the trust reposed in her, 
 the tempted cashier may be sure he had 
 better die a hundred deaths than save his 
 life by doing what he before knew to be 
 wrong, but now feels may not, after all, be 
 so culpable. 
 
 So, also, in matters lesser or greater. The 
 time for a man of business, or a literary man, 
 to decide whether he ought to be interrupted 
 in his work to see a particular caller, or, in 
 fact, to see any one who calls on him, is not 
 at the moment the caller is announced, and 
 while his duties of the hour press him most 
 heavily and perplexingly. Then he is un- 
 suited to look at the question impartially. 
 He ought to settle in advance on his proper 
 course in matters of this kind, and act in 
 view of his deliberate decisions, rather than 
 
DUTY-DOING. 33 
 
 according to his feelings — or even according 
 to what may seem to be his conscientious 
 convictions in the practical emergency. If 
 it is right for him to receive the caller, it is 
 his duty to bear himself during all the inter- 
 view as if he had nothing to live for just 
 then but to attend to the person whom he 
 thus receives. Indeed, that is his pre-emi- 
 nent duty, for the time being, however he 
 may feel about it. 
 
 The same principle applies to our estimate 
 of the binding force or of the propriety of a 
 business contract, a professional obligation, 
 or a covenant of friendship. The time to 
 decide on such matters is when we can look 
 at them coolly, dispassionately; not when 
 some question of personal loss or danger, 
 or when some misunderstanding, or strong 
 swaying of attachment or repulsion, is liable 
 to influence the judgment unduly. 
 
 But, it may be asked, How are we to know 
 
 what is right, and what is wrong, if we cannot 
 
 trust our impressions of the hour as to our 
 
 personal duty in a present emergency? Must 
 
 3 
 
34 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 we always go back to a former decision of 
 conscience, and accept it as more accurate 
 than the one to which we are now inclined ? 
 Can we never with propriety reverse a de- 
 cision of conscience? Of course a former 
 decision may have been wrong, and now 
 demand reversal. But in such a case we 
 must have a care to bring conscience into a 
 fitting state to decide anew judicially. 
 
 We may feel sure, to begin with, that a 
 deliberate decision, made at a time when 
 self-interest was not a factor in the verdict, 
 is more likely to be trustworthy than a de- 
 cision made under the pressure of strong 
 feeling, or of special personal considerations. 
 The old decision ought to hold against every 
 pressure until a new one has been arrived at 
 with at least as fair and full a deliberation as 
 was given to the former. If, moreover, other 
 persons or parties are involved in the issue, 
 they have a right to be heard in the premises, 
 and their interests are to be duly considered 
 in arriving at the final conclusion. 
 
 "We need every one of us to know," says 
 
DUTY-DOING. 35 
 
 Bushnell, in his essay on The Moral Uses of 
 Insanity, "that we live in moods and phases, 
 working eccentrically, sometimes more un- 
 hinged, and sometimes less; sometimes in 
 better nature, and sometimes irritable; some- 
 times more disposed to jealousy; sometimes 
 more to conceit Nothing looks fresh after 
 a sleepless night; nothing true after an over- 
 heavy dinner. . . . Opinion is sometimes 
 bilious; sensibility, morbid and sore; and 
 passion, tempest-sprung, goes wild in all 
 sorts of rampages. At one time we can be 
 captious toward a friend; at another, gener- 
 ous toward an enemy; at another, about 
 equally indifferent to both. Now a wise 
 man is one who understands himself well 
 enough to make due allowances for such 
 unsane moods and varieties, never conclud- 
 ing that a thing is thus or thus because just 
 now it bears that look ; waiting often to see 
 what a sleep, or a walk, or a cool revision, 
 or perhaps a considerable turn of repentance, 
 will do." 
 
 It may be that your present impression of 
 
36 D UTY-KNO WING. 
 
 duty is a correct one; and it may be that it 
 is anything but correct. At all events, you 
 should have it ever in mind that to feel that 
 a certain course is right or wrong does not 
 make it so; and that your duty is to do 
 what is right whether it seems right or not 
 "Look therefore whether the light that is 
 in thee be not darkness ;" for if "the light 
 that is in thee be darkness, how great is the 
 darkness." 
 
IV. 
 
 NO CIRCUMFERENCE WITHOUT 
 A CENTER. 
 
 The very idea of a wide-reaching circle 
 involves the thought of a fixed and definite 
 center. It is an axiom in pure mathematics 
 that "'all points of the circumference of a 
 circle are equidistant from the point called 
 the center." And even where the attempt 
 has been made to conceive of a spiritual cir- 
 cle without a limiting circumference, it has 
 not been found possible to conceive of such 
 a circle without a center from which the circle 
 should sweep outward indefinitely; as, for 
 instance, in Pascal's beautiful suggestion of 
 God, as "a circle, whose center is everywhere, 
 and whose circumference is nowhere." 
 
 This truth of the absolute necessity of a 
 center, as precedent to the existence, and as 
 essential to the continuance, of a circle, is a 
 
 37 
 
38 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 truth having its practical bearings in every 
 sphere, or in every circle, of human action 
 and human thought and human feeling. If 
 a man would be outreaching and far-sweep- 
 ing in his feelings, in his thoughts, or in his 
 actions, he must have a fixed and central 
 standpoint, from which his sympathies, his 
 opinions, and his activities, may radiate to 
 the definite, or to the indefinite, circumfer- 
 ence of his affections and purposes and en- 
 deavors. And just so soon as the relations 
 of the circumference, and of all the disc 
 within, to the fixed and unvarying center, are 
 lost to sight and thought in any man's sphere 
 or circle, just so soon do confusion and chaos 
 take the place of system and order within 
 that sphere or circle. 
 
 There is no such thing as a love which 
 goes out after those who are afar off, who 
 are remote from one's self, but which fails to 
 show itself toward those who are near. This 
 is the real meaning of the sadly perverted 
 adage, " Charity begins at home," but not to 
 end there. He who would love his race, 
 
DUTY-DOING. 39 
 
 must first love those of his race who are 
 nearest to him. Unless a man's love has a 
 center in his home, it cannot fill a circumfer- 
 ence beyond his home. And when a man's 
 love has extended beyond his home, into 
 however far reaching a circumference, it must 
 not have lost its primal center, but must still 
 hold firmly to that, in order that its power of 
 right extension, the possibility of its sym- 
 metrical sweep, be not destroyed hopelessly. 
 
 '* Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam 
 His first, best country ever is at home." 
 
 When we talk of the desirableness of in- 
 cluding all the world in our sympathies, we 
 ought to bear in mind that 
 
 " That man's the best cosmopolite 
 Who loves his native country best." 
 
 The " Wandering Jew," who could claim no 
 country as his own, would be a poor citizen 
 anywhere. And when we would claim to 
 have charity for all creeds and opinions alike, 
 we ought not to forget that charity is an im- 
 possibility to those who are without convic- 
 
40 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 tions. Indifference is essentially contrary to 
 charity. One must have a center of personal 
 attachments, before he can have a circum- 
 ference of sympathy or charity into which 
 he may sweep freely. No man can be truly 
 liberal in his views of truth unless he believes 
 something with all his heart. And he who 
 is most firmly held to his own fixed center of 
 affection and of opinion, is the man most 
 likely to cover an extended area in his range 
 of thought and work. 
 
 There is such a thing as confining one's 
 affections and thoughts and activities within 
 too limited a circumference; like Burke, ac- 
 cording to Goldsmith, 
 
 " Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind, 
 And to party gave up what was meant for man- 
 kind;" 
 
 and that is a danger to be guarded against 
 jealously. But there is not such a thing as 
 having a circumference without a center, or 
 as wisely breaking loose from one's center in 
 order to expand one's circumference. Hence, 
 while we may all of us recognize the impor- 
 
DUTY-DOING. 4 1 
 
 tance of enlarging our circumference to the 
 fullest, we must not be misled into ignoring 
 the importance of the center from which we 
 are to enlarge. 
 
 It is right to have the center of our affec- 
 tions in our home. We could never be kind 
 and loving to those beyond it, if w r e should 
 fail to be kind and loving to those who are 
 at this center. It is right to have a center of 
 attachment in one's native tow r n, or state, or 
 section of country; although it is not right 
 to exclude from our affections those of our 
 fellows who were not born within that local 
 circumference. We could never attain to the 
 highest patriotism, if we had no center of 
 local attachment within our country's bounds. 
 
 It is right to have a center of political party 
 preferences. No citizen can have a living 
 interest in the welfare of his government, un- 
 less he has some standpoint of party princi- 
 ples from which he outreaches for the good 
 of that government. It is right to have a 
 center of denominational opinions. There is 
 no hope of our being broad and liberal in the 
 
42 D UTY-KNO WING AND 
 
 truest sense, unless we have a fixed center of 
 belief from which our estimates of the views 
 of others shall radiate. It is right to have a 
 center of sympathy and interest in our own 
 local school, or college, or church. We can- 
 not be interested in education or religion gen- 
 erally, unless we are particularly interested 
 in some educational or religious institution 
 or organization to begin with, and to judge 
 by. In fact, wherever an expanding circum- 
 ference is to be desired, a fixed center is an 
 absolute necessity. 
 
 And as it is in the circumference of our 
 own circle of affections and influence, so it 
 is, even more surely and unvaryingly, in the 
 vast and limitless circle of the universe. Each 
 orb in the starry heavens has its own fixed 
 center, and again it finds and fills its place in 
 the immensity of space by its unchanging 
 relation — in all its seeming changes — to the 
 center of its solar system, or yet again, to 
 the center of all the starry systems. The 
 center once lost, or the centripetal force which 
 binds each revolving orb to that center, in all 
 
uUTY- DOING. 43 
 
 its majestic movements, failing but for an in- 
 stant, and creation itself would feel the shock. 
 So, also, in the vaster universe of spiritual 
 being. God is the center of that universe; — 
 
 " That God which ever lives and loves, 
 One God, one law, one element, 
 And one far-off Divine event, 
 To which the whole creation moves." 
 
 Each individual soul can have and hold a 
 sweep in the great circumference of God only 
 as it retains unvaryingly its relations to that 
 fixed Center. Those relations retained, and 
 the revolving souls may sweep onward and 
 outward, safely and surely, in ever-enlarging 
 orbits, through the limitless ages of eternity; 
 but those relations once broken, and the 
 grandest, noblest souls are aimlessly astray 
 in the boundless universe of God — ''wander- 
 ing stars, to whom is reserved the blackness 
 of darkness forever." 
 
 So always, so to all, so everywhere. Xo 
 far-reaching circumference of feeling, or 
 thought, or action, is possible to any one 
 of us, without a fixed and retained center of 
 
44 D UTY-KNO WING. 
 
 feeling and thought and action. And no 
 place or part in the great universe of being 
 is possible to us, save as we have and hold 
 our individual relation to God as the omni- 
 present center of the infinite circumference 
 of spiritual being. 
 
 " To God, of all the center and the source, 
 Be power and glory given ; 
 Who sways the mighty world through all 
 its course, 
 From the bright throne of heaven." 
 
V. 
 
 THE DUTY OF BELIEVING 
 SOMETHING. 
 
 A positive belief of some kind is essential 
 to a man's manhood. He who has no belief, 
 is without the chief impelling power in human 
 nature; and, whatever are his other qualities 
 and possessions, he can never be a fully fur- 
 nished man in his sphere of influence and 
 action. The better a man's belief, the better 
 it is for the man; but even apart from the 
 question of the quality of his belief, the fact 
 of his having a belief of any sort is to his 
 advantage. The worst belief in the world is 
 better than no belief; and from that starting- 
 point all the w r ay up the scale, it is the man's 
 measure of belief that decides the measure 
 of the man himself. 
 
 It is a common thought to connect the 
 idea of creed or belief with narrowness of 
 
 45 
 
46 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 mind and bigotry of spirit, and to consider 
 laxity of belief as practically synonymous 
 with liberality of mind and soul. But as a 
 matter of fact there is not necessarily any 
 bigotry in even the strictest belief; and there 
 is in a sense no possibility of true liberality 
 except as a result of a positive belief. Love 
 is the very essence of belief; while bigotry 
 is an exhibit of a lack of love. The word 
 "belief " is but another form of the term "by 
 love." Its primitive meaning is, a conviction 
 that comes by love for a truth that is deemed 
 worthy of love. 
 
 " Liberality " is a word from the same root 
 as love, or belief. It indicates a loving spirit 
 toward others; and in the nature of things a 
 spirit of love will show itself alike in all 
 directions, — toward the truth and toward 
 those who need the light of truth. Bigotry, 
 on the other hand, is in its essence unloving. 
 It does not grow out of a love of truth, but 
 out of a hatred of those who are supposed 
 to oppose the truth; and it is quite as likely 
 to show itself in those who dislike narrow- 
 
DUTY-DOING. 47 
 
 minded believers as in those who are narrow- 
 minded in their belief. A traditional origin 
 of the word " bigot" is in the exclamation of 
 a duke of Normandy, who, on being ordered 
 to kiss the foot of King Charles, replied ve- 
 hemently, "Ne se, bi Gott!" — "Not so, by 
 God!" Or, in other words, the first " bigot" 
 is supposed to have been a man who was in- 
 tense in his opposition to the narrow bounds 
 of the customs of his day. And as a matter 
 of fact, the spirit of bigotiy, or of unloving 
 intolerance, is, and always has been, found in 
 some of its worst phases in the minds and 
 hearts of those who abhor creeds and creed- 
 lovers. A positive belief is consistent with 
 the largest liberality ; and the lack of a posi- 
 tive belief is often the accompaniment, if not 
 the cause, of a narrow-minded illiberality — 
 in the spirit of the intensest bigotry. 
 
 A religious belief is, and always has been, 
 a characteristic of man in his purest and 
 noblest outreachings toward the unseen and 
 the infinite. The highest attainments and the 
 highest aspirations of the human soul have 
 
48 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 ever been in the direction of man's religious 
 beliefs. And the strongest incentives to per- 
 sonal well-doing, to acts of self-denying and 
 self-forgetful devotion to the good of others, 
 and to the surrender of one's person, one's 
 possessions, and one's very life, in proof of 
 fidelity to principle and to truth, have always 
 had their center in those beliefs. There has 
 been much of bigotry on the part of those 
 who have had positive beliefs in the realm of 
 religious truth, and, again, there has been 
 much of liberality on the part of such be- 
 lievers. The bigotry has been an evidence 
 of the bad spirit of those who held the beliefs, 
 and who were bitter against those who did 
 not hold them. The liberality has been the 
 outgrowth of that spirit of love which is the 
 essence of every true belief, and which ought 
 to show itself in every direction and toward all. 
 A religious belief of some kind is a duty; 
 for a religious belief is an essential part of a 
 man's truest manhood. What men believe, 
 is really of less importance than that men 
 believe something. There is a measure of 
 
DUTY-DOING. 49 
 
 excuse for persons who have a wrong belief 
 in matters of religion, but there is no excuse 
 for those who have no belief in such matters. 
 In the one case the person may have been 
 wrongly taught or unwisely influenced; but 
 in the other case there is a lack of personal 
 character, or of the assertion of character; 
 and for that lack the individual is immedi- 
 ately responsible. He who is without a posi- 
 tive belief in matters of religion is without 
 the chiefest distinguishing trait of an intelli- 
 gent and fully developed human being; and 
 if he does not know enough to be ashamed 
 of his lack, it is to his discredit in every way. 
 Error of religious opinion is bad enough; 
 but it is not so bad as emptiness of religious 
 opinion. 
 
 Mr. James Russell Lowell, who would not 
 be called a religious bigot, said, on this point, 
 in an address in London, while he was the 
 American Minister there: " The worst kind 
 of religion is no religion at all; and those 
 men who live in ease and luxury, indulging 
 themselves in 'the amusement of going with- 
 4 
 
50 D UTY-KNO WING AND 
 
 out religion/ may be thankful that they live 
 in a land where the gospel they neglect has 
 tamed the beastliness and ferocity of the men 
 who, but for Christianity, might long ago 
 have eaten their bodies like the South Sea 
 Islanders, or cut off their heads and tanned 
 their hides, like the monsters of the French 
 Revolution." And here, incidentally, Mr. 
 Lowell emphasized the truth, that the bitter- 
 est spirit of bigotry and intolerance that has 
 been known within the bounds of the civil- 
 ized world in modern times, was among "the 
 monsters of the French Revolution" — mon- 
 sters because of their lack of any positive 
 religious belief. 
 
 There is no commoner error, nor is there 
 a greater one, in the realm of religious 
 thought, — or in the realm of thought about 
 religion, — than in supposing that liberality 
 of opinion consists largely in refusing to 
 believe what others believe — in this realm. 
 Whereas, true liberality consists in having a 
 belief which will take in the measure of truth 
 that is in every creed, and which includes 
 
DUTY-DOING. 5 1 
 
 more than is specifically defined in any or all 
 of them. "I am very liberal," says one. 
 " I'm too liberal to believe all that is in your 
 creed." "Well, do you believe all that is in 
 the Bible ? " " No, I don't believe all the Old 
 Testament stories." " Do you believe what 
 is taught in the New Testament?" "I don't 
 believe in Paul's theology." " Do you believe 
 the words of Jesus ? " "I don't believe that 
 he was divine." " You are telling me what 
 you don't believe. Will you tell me what you 
 do believe?" "Well, I don't think it makes 
 much difference what a man believes, if only 
 he does right." "And now will you just tell 
 me how a man can know what is right, and 
 what it is that he ought to do in order to fare 
 as well as the best of men, unless he has 
 some well-defined belief concerning duty here 
 and destiny hereafter?" 
 
 The writer was present, at one time, at a 
 small gathering of clergymen, — all of whom 
 loved to be known as "liberal Christians," 
 and some of whom were liberal, while others 
 were not, — where a young pastor read an essay 
 
52 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 on freedom of religious thought, in which he 
 expressed himself strongly against all creeds 
 and positive beliefs concerning the here or 
 the hereafter, as only hindrances to a man's 
 individual progress in thinking and doing. 
 
 Among those who listened with thoughtful 
 interest to that paper was the large-brained 
 and large-hearted James Freeman Clarke; 
 and when it came to his turn to comment 
 upon it, he said, with gentle and considerate 
 firmness: "I appreciate most heartily the 
 spirit of our young brother in his well- 
 written paper; but I think he has made one 
 mistake in outlining the necessities of a suc- 
 cessful life voyage. Every navigator may 
 choose for himself his ultimate destination; 
 but he must intend to go somewhere, or his 
 voyage is a dead failure from the start. I 
 find a shipmaster with a fine vessel well sup- 
 plied with stores for a voyage, and I ask him 
 where he is going. i Oh, I haven't any par- 
 ticular destination ! ' he answers. ' I'm going 
 to weigh anchor, and spread my sails, and 
 leave it to the winds and tides to take me 
 
DUTY-DOING. 53 
 
 where they will. I've no confidence in charts; 
 so 111 not follow them. I've no need of a 
 compass ; for that is of service only when a 
 navigator decides his own course. I'll not 
 follow any old tracks. I'll simply go on a 
 voyage.' Now, however conscientious and 
 well-meaning that captain is, I think he makes 
 a fatal mistake. If I am in command of a 
 ship, I want to sail for somewhere. Whether 
 it's Greenland, or the Indian Ocean, or Cape 
 Horn, or Madagascar, I'll have some port in 
 view, and I'll go for it. And I think any man 
 makes a great mistake who has not enough 
 of a creed to sail by — for somewhere." 
 
 No man, young or old, ought to be satis- 
 fied with knowing what he does not believe. 
 It is his duty to know what he does believe, 
 and to make that belief the purpose of his 
 life-course, until another belief, a larger be- 
 lief, or a better belief, has control of him; 
 for no life is worth living that is not con- 
 trolled or directed by a positive belief for the 
 here and for the hereafter. And the fuller 
 and truer belief will be surer to come to one 
 
54 D UTY-KNO WING. 
 
 who is already moving along in the line of 
 his imperfect and it may be his erroneous 
 belief, than to one who is not moving in the 
 line of any belief. 
 
 At one of Mr. Moody's Summer Schools 
 for College Students, at Northfield, young Mr. 
 Wilder, an evangelist of the foreign mission- 
 ary work, said pithily : " I do not know where 
 I shall work, but, God helping me, I am 
 going where there are thousands and millions 
 who have never heard the name of Jesus. I 
 mean to open the throttle-valve and steam out 
 on the main track of the greatest need. If 
 the Lord wishes me on a side track, he can 
 switch me off. But God cannot switch a 
 motionless engine." And as it is in action, 
 so it is in belief. The only hope of finally 
 making progress in the right direction, is in 
 the soul-absorbing purpose of making prog- 
 ress in some direction. 
 
VI. 
 
 THE DUTY OF FORGETTING SELF. 
 
 A great deal has been said, by philosopher 
 and by poet, of the duty of considering self; 
 but not so much has been said of the duty 
 of forgetting self. Yet the true beauty, the 
 true symmetry, and the true force, of any 
 admirable character, are dependent on entire 
 forgetfulness of self, rather than on the wisest 
 thought of self. And only as self is forgot- 
 ten, in the life that now is, are the highest 
 interests of self promoted for this life and 
 for the life beyond. 
 
 " Know thyself! " is an injunction of the old 
 classic writers, — Plato, Menander, Plutarch, 
 Perseus, Juvenal, and others ; and it has been 
 repeated by writers of modern times with un- 
 varying emphasis. Pope renders it: 
 
 ''Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; 1 
 The proper study of mankind is man." U*» 
 
 55 
 
56 D UTY-KNO WING AND 
 
 Young's version is: 
 
 "Man, know thyself, all wisdom centers there." 
 
 Gay reiterates: 
 
 "That man must daily wiser grow, 
 Whose search is bent himself to know.'* 
 
 And Schiller expands the thought: 
 
 "To know thyself — in others' self concern; 
 Would' st thou know others ? read thyself— and 
 learn." 
 
 Fidelity to self, and self-sacrifice, are, by 
 many a teacher, made the standards of a 
 noble character. Shakespeare's counsel is: 
 
 "To thine own self be true; 
 And it must follow, as the night the day, 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man." 
 
 Longfellow affirms, from Michael Angelo : 
 
 " He that respects himself is safe from others, 
 He wears a coat of mail that none can pierce." 
 
 And Tennyson sums up his lessons of wis- 
 dom, in the declaration: 
 
 " Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, 
 These three alone lead life to sovereign power." 
 
DUTY-DOING. $7 
 
 That there is a sense in which these decla- 
 rations of philosophers and poets concerning 
 the duty of knowing self, and of being true 
 to self, and of respecting self, are wise and 
 true, is not to be questioned. But it is also 
 a fact, beyond fair question, that the ordinary 
 understanding of these declarations is an 
 erroneous one, and that there is a sense in 
 which the declarations themselves, just as 
 they stand, represent a falsehood most harm- 
 ful to all who accept it as the truth. And 
 because it is a tendency of human nature to 
 run in the direction of the falsehood indi- 
 cated in the popular rendering of these 
 declarations, it is pre-eminently important 
 that we realize that there is something 
 better for us than self-knowledge, than self- 
 reverence, or than fidelity to self. 
 
 To know one's self in the sense in which 
 self-knowledge is ordinarily spoken of, is an 
 impossibility, and effort directed to that end 
 is misspent endeavor. As a rule, he who 
 thinks he best knows himself, knows least 
 concerning his truest self; and he who de- 
 
58 D UTY-KNO WING A ND 
 
 votes most time to the study of himself 
 knows less and less of his real measure as 
 a man. This truth was not wholly unrec- 
 ognized even by the classic philosophers who 
 emphasized the importance of self-knowledge. 
 Said Plato : " Perhaps the precept i Know thy- 
 self would not be considered divine [as the 
 ancients deemed it] if every man could easily 
 reduce it to practice." And Menander added : 
 " In many things thou dost not well to say, 
 1 Know thyself; ' for it would be better to say, 
 ' Know others/ " 
 
 There is a gain, indeed, in knowing enough 
 of one's self to realize one's unworthiness 
 and shortcomings, and to recognize one limi- 
 tations of knowledge and power. But this 
 knowledge may be very quickly obtained, 
 and in order to its securing one must measure 
 himself by a standard outside of himself, and 
 not of his own making. "Retire into thy- 
 self," said Perseus, "and thou wilt blush to 
 find how poor a stock is there." He who 
 has had one glimpse of his true nature, as 
 it is in comparison with a perfect standard, 
 
DUTY-DOING. 59 
 
 will want to study something better worth 
 studying than that. "That saying, 'Know 
 thyself/" said Menander, "has this meaning, 
 that thou get acquainted with thy own abili- 
 ties, and with what thou art able to accom- 
 plish." Similarly said Juvenal: "I should 
 with reason despise that man who knows 
 how much Atlas soars above all other moun- 
 tains in Africa, and yet is ignorant how much 
 a small purse differs from an iron-bound 
 chest." Again he said: "In great concerns 
 and small, one must know one's own meas- 
 ure even when going to buy a fish, lest thou 
 shouldst long for a mullet when thou hast 
 only money for a gudgeon in thy purse." 
 
 It is well to know enough of one's self to 
 know that one ought to be better and to do 
 better than at present, and that in and of 
 one's self one cannot do or be as well as he 
 ought to wish to do and to be. But all this 
 requires no close studying of self, nor can it 
 at the first be learned from one's self and by 
 one's self. It is only as one looks out of 
 one's self, and away from one's self, that one 
 
60 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 can find a standard worthy of one's aspira- 
 tions and endeavors; nor can one find the 
 way of reaching such a standard by any 
 fidelity of self-examination and self-study. 
 
 "Self-reverence" sounds well; but as a 
 practical matter it is much like that wor- 
 ship which a "self-made man" is said to 
 render to his maker. "Self- respect" is 
 good or is bad according to the worth or 
 the unworth of him who gives it. Many a 
 duelist, many a highwayman, many a gam- 
 bler, prides himself on the thought that he 
 has never lost his self-respect, even though 
 he has lost the respect of eveiybody else. 
 No standard of respect or of reverence that 
 centers in one's self is a safe standard of 
 character or of conduct. But utter forget- 
 fulness of self is always a means of safety to 
 him who respects and reverences that which 
 is worthy of respect and reverence, and who 
 strives at right doing and at right being in 
 the direction of a God-given standard. 
 
 Knowledge, respect, and reverence ought 
 to be directed away from one's self, toward 
 
DUTY-DOING. 6 1 
 
 standards that cannot be affected by one's 
 personal interests or preferences. It is a 
 man's duty to know what is right, whether 
 he has been accustomed to do it or not. It 
 is a man's duty to do what is right, w r hether 
 it seems to be in accord with his interests or 
 not. A man ought to respect and revere 
 those who are worthy of respect and rever- 
 ence, even though they be wholly unlike 
 himself in conduct and character. And, in 
 reaching out after high attainment and in 
 striving toward a fitting standard, the less 
 a man thinks about himself, and the more 
 he thinks about those things that are outside 
 of and beyond him, the surer he is to make 
 progress and attainment in the direction of 
 his striving. 
 
 Thinking about one's self, even for the 
 purpose of knowing one's self, or of respect- 
 ing one's self, or of reverencing one's self, 
 or of controlling one's self, or of directing 
 one's powers aright, is a poor way of using 
 one's time and one's intellect. "He who 
 intends to be a great man," said Plato, 
 
62 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 "ought to love neither himself nor his own 
 things, but only what is just, whether it hap- 
 pens to be done by himself or by another." 
 "Let no man seek his own, but each his 
 neighbor's good," said the Apostle Paul; 
 "not looking each of you to his own things, 
 but each of you also to the things of others." 
 And a greater than Paul or Plato said, con- 
 cerning the pursuit of those things that seem 
 essential to one's very life on earth: "Be 
 not . . . anxious, saying, What shall we 
 eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Where- 
 withal shall we be clothed? . . . Your heav- 
 enly Father knoweth that ye have need of 
 all these things. But seek ye first [not your 
 own interests, but] his kingdom and his 
 righteousness; and all these things shall be 
 added unto you." 
 
 Thinking of one's self is a hindrance to 
 one's well-doing in any line of effort, physi- 
 cal, mental, or spiritual. Forgetfulness of 
 one's self is a source of added power in 
 every direction of one's well - intentioned 
 endeavor. An athlete must forget himself 
 
DUTY-DOING. 63 
 
 if he would succeed in any performance that 
 demands a steady eye, and a clear head, and 
 a well-poised body. To turn away his 
 thoughts from his object of effort to him- 
 self, at such a time, is to bring him into 
 added peril. His safety is in having no 
 thought of himself. He who would write 
 or speak in behalf of any cause must forget 
 himself in his subject. Any thought of 
 himself is sure to diminish a man's power 
 as an advocate. Only as one who prays for 
 or who pleads with souls is seen to be 
 wholly forgetful of self does he sway others 
 at his will for good. So always and every- 
 where: self-forgetfulness is a means of power ; 
 self-consciousness is a loss of influence. 
 
 It is better to know others than to know 
 one's self. It is better to study others than 
 to study one's self. It is better to respect 
 the right and to reverence the noble and the 
 pure and the holy, than to respect or rever- 
 ence one's self. And in all one's best en- 
 deavors, in things little and large, it is better 
 to forget one's self and to think unselfishly 
 
64 D UTY-KNO WING. 
 
 of others. It is thinking of one's self that 
 makes one awkward and bashful in entering 
 a room, or in greeting a guest. It is think- 
 ing of one's self that makes one at a loss 
 what to say or do in the effort to be cour- 
 teous and kind and tender towards those 
 who deserve and need one's attention. It 
 is thinking of one's self that stands in the 
 way of one's most efficient service in the 
 world in any sphere which he is summoned 
 to fill. Under all circumstances, and in 
 every place, it is a man's duty and a man's 
 privilege to be so absorbed in some aspira- 
 tion, or some thought, or some endeavor, 
 outside of himself, as to be forgetful of him- 
 self, and so to illustrate the worth and the 
 beauty of self-forgetfulness. 
 
VII. 
 BEING WHOLLY THE LORDS. 
 
 No man is his own master. And no man 
 is less free and independent than he who sup- 
 poses he is his own master. The man who 
 never looks above himself for directions as 
 to his duty, and for instruction as to his privi- 
 leges, is like a ship in mid-ocean without a 
 commander. He can be driven by wind or 
 wave, but he can make no successful contest 
 for the mastery of the forces of outside nature. 
 Only as he fills his place in the plans of a 
 government which includes himself and others, 
 can a man find the play of his best powers, or 
 use his energies for the accomplishing of the 
 highest results possible to them. 
 
 A young man who sets out in life with the 
 
 thought that he will do just as he pleases to 
 
 do, regardless of the rights or opinions of 
 
 others, is pretty sure to find before long that 
 
 5 65 
 
66 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 he can act his own pleasure just so long as 
 his own pleasure is within the limits which 
 the civil government has allowed to the choice 
 of its each individual citizen. The liberty 
 that he has is a liberty secured to him by his 
 master. If he goes beyond that liberty, he 
 is liable to find himself deprived of all per- 
 sonal liberty. So it is with every man of 
 business, or man of enterprise in any depart- 
 ment of life. He is his own master only to 
 the extent of using the liberty which is allowed 
 to him by his real master — or masters. 
 
 It is the same in the realm of mental and 
 spiritual life as in that of material things. 
 Neither in thought nor in action can a man 
 be his own master, save as he is subject to a 
 master outside of himself. He cannot make 
 laws of logic, or of philosophy, or of morals, 
 or of natural forces, to suit himself. His 
 highest freedom is in seeking for himself, or 
 in choosing for himself, the specific laws in 
 any one of these spheres which have been 
 undervalued or unrecognized by others. And 
 the very suggestion of a law involves the 
 
DUTY-DOING. 6? 
 
 idea of a lawgiver; hence, he who says he 
 will obey the laws of his own nature, or of 
 the material and moral world about him, 
 really means — whether he knows it or not — 
 that he will obey so far the Lawgiver who 
 has made the laws of his own nature, and of 
 the material and moral world about him. 
 But if, meanwhile, a man is deceiving himself 
 with the thought that he is his own master, 
 instead of being subject to the Great Master, 
 he will be unable to serve effectually his own 
 best interests, or the interests of his Divine 
 Master. 
 
 A man of God, or a child of God, ought 
 to know that he is in a universe controlled 
 by his God, and that it is his duty and his 
 privilege to be wholly the Lord's, and to do 
 fully and effectively all the work that the 
 Lord has for him to do. Knowing this, he 
 must know also that his real power lies in 
 his dependence on his God instead of on 
 himself. This sense of dependence, so far 
 from lessening a man's personal indepen- 
 dence of thought and action, is the very basis 
 
68 D UTY-KNO WING A ND 
 
 of the highest independence possible to a 
 man, — the independence of every one and of 
 every thing save Him who is over all and in 
 all. In fact, no man can be so independent 
 of all else as he who is consciously and trust- 
 fully dependent wholly on God. 
 
 Being wholly the Lord's is not in itself being 
 holy and sinless in personal life; although he 
 who is wholly the Lord's ought to be holy 
 and sinless. Being wholly the Lord's is rec- 
 ognizing God as Lord and Master, and count- 
 ing one's self subject wholly, in all things 
 and at all times, to God as Lord and Master; 
 even though one fails of perfectness in the 
 line of recognized duty. A soldier, for ex- 
 ample, who recognizes his commander as his 
 true master, and who realizes that it is always 
 his duty to do just as his master would have 
 him do, may be a very poor soldier in actual 
 performance, failing at many a point in his 
 soldierly duty. He is wholly a soldier of the 
 army to which he belongs, yet he does not 
 do fully as well as he might do as a soldier 
 of that army. 
 
DUTY-DOING. 69 
 
 On the other hand, a soldier who is in doubt 
 whether he ought to receive all orders from 
 one commander, and do at all times just what 
 that commander directs, may even do better 
 immediate service than the other, while he is 
 executing the orders of his commander; yet 
 it is obvious that his attitude toward his com- 
 mander is less satisfactory than the attitude 
 of the other soldier, inasmuch as he takes it 
 upon himself to decide when he ought to 
 serve his commander, and when it is not his 
 duty to do so. Similarly the Christian man 
 who counts himself wholly the Lord's is in a 
 better attitude toward the Lord, even though 
 his service be imperfect service, than he who 
 counts himself partially the Lord's and par- 
 tially his own master. 
 
 It was said of Caleb, and Caleb said of 
 himself, that he "wholly followed the Lord," 
 at a time when there were very few who were 
 ready to believe that it would be safe to fol- 
 low the Lord into Canaan, with things as 
 they were just then and there. It would cer- 
 tainly not be fair to say that Caleb's depend- 
 
70 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 ence on God at this time made Caleb less 
 truly an independent man as a man. All but 
 one of his fellow-spies declared that the cities 
 of Canaan were walled up to heaven, and that 
 there were great giants inside of those walls ; 
 therefore it was of no use for an unwarlike 
 people like the Israelites to think of trying 
 to capture those cities and dispossess those 
 giants. Caleb made no denial of the facts of 
 the case; but he said that his God was above 
 all the walls of Canaan, and was greater than 
 any of its giants ; therefore he was ready to 
 face the giants and attack the walled cities, 
 whenever his God gave the order for so doing. 
 And that was true independence of character, 
 • — an independence that could never come to 
 any man except through the same sort of 
 faith-filled dependence as Caleb's. 
 
 Being wholly the Lord's is not, however, 
 the same thing as wholly trusting the Lord. 
 One may wholly trust the Lord with a mis- 
 taken view of the Lord's position with refer- 
 ence to the one who trusts him. There is 
 such a thing as looking upon the Lord as a 
 
DUTY-DOING. 7 1 
 
 helper of his servants, instead of looking upon 
 the Lord as one who directs, and makes use- 
 ful, and uses his servants. A hundred per- 
 sons would like the Lord's help, where one 
 person would like to help the Lord. Yet in 
 order to be wholly the Lord's, the Lord must 
 be recognized as Master; and the servant's 
 attitude must be that of willing and confident 
 service of the Lord. 
 
 He who counts himself wholly the Lord's, 
 recognizes the fact that he belongs to the 
 Lord; that himself, his talents, his time, his 
 possessions, everything that he is, and every- 
 thing that he has, belongs to the Lord; and 
 that at all times and in all places it is his 
 duty to be and to do just that which God 
 would have him be and do. He realizes that 
 he is never his own master, and that nothing 
 that he has is his own. And, in this con- 
 sciousness of never-failing dependence, a man 
 is at his highest possible independence; for 
 he fears only the Lord, and is afraid of noth- 
 ing else in the universe. Such a man is sure 
 that, because he belongs to the Lord, he has 
 
72 D UTY-KNO WING. 
 
 the strength of the Lord in his own sphere 
 of duty, while his scope of power within that 
 sphere is as the Lord's. He is immortal until 
 his work for the Lord is done; and he is in- 
 vincible while he is doing the Lord's work. 
 
 There is no slavishness in such depend- 
 ence on God as this. On the contrary, it is 
 the liberty of loving confidence. It is better 
 than the trust of a servant in his master, or 
 of a soldier in his commander; it is the joy- 
 ous trust of a little child in his wise and lov- 
 ing parent. A true child is glad to realize 
 that he belongs to his mother; that he is hers 
 at all times, whether in her sight or away 
 from her. He feels freer, indeed, in deciding 
 how to use his time, or how to spend his 
 money, while he is all by himself, when he 
 can feel sure that his good mother would 
 prefer to have him do just this or just that. 
 And every child of God can have this free- 
 dom in the use of his time and his means, as 
 he considers how to conform his course to 
 the approbation of Him whose he is, and 
 whom he serves. 
 
VIII. 
 ALWAYS ON DUTY. 
 
 A good soldier recognizes the added re- 
 sponsibility resting on him, when he is on 
 duty as a soldier. Even though he be care- 
 less of his dress, and his speech, and his 
 personal bearing, while in his tent with his 
 tent-mates, he will give the closest attention 
 to every detail of his uniform, will consider 
 well his language and the manner of its 
 expression, and will be erect and dignified 
 in his carriage, when on guard, or when in 
 line for inspection, for review, or for battle. 
 Yet, in some cases, a soldier who is scrupu- 
 lously exact in his soldierly conduct w r hen 
 on duty as a soldier, is reckless of his course 
 as a man when on furlough, or while other- 
 wise temporarily absent from his camp or 
 his command. With such a soldier there 
 are two standards of conduct. His standard 
 
 73 
 
74 D UTY-KNO WING A ND 
 
 while on duty is one thing; his standard 
 while off duty is quite another thing. 
 
 As it is with the soldier, so, too often, is it 
 with the Christian. There is, as he sees it, 
 one standard for the realm of his Christian 
 duty ; there is another standard for the realm 
 of his personal enjoyment and recreation. 
 His Sunday suit, in some instances, seems 
 to be his Christian uniform. His speech for 
 the prayer-meeting, or for the Sunday-school, 
 or for family worship, seems to be another 
 language from that for his ordinary converse. 
 His attitude and his manner toward reli- 
 gious things and toward secular things, differ 
 widely. 
 
 It is evident that as a Christian such a 
 man recognizes a measure of responsibility 
 in the purely religious sphere, which does 
 not rest on him outside of that sphere. 
 This shows itself, again, in his questioning 
 as to the use of his time, his money, his 
 influence, in the one sphere or the other. 
 He is, indeed, sometimes in doubt whether, 
 or not, he is on duty as a Christian; but he 
 
DUTY-DOING. 7$ 
 
 does not doubt that his standard while on 
 duty ought to be very different from his 
 standard while off duty. 
 
 But any soldier is in error concerning his 
 responsibility as a soldier, if he fails to real- 
 ize that, even while off duty in one sense, he 
 is still on duty in another sense. A soldier 
 need not wear his uniform at all times, nor 
 need he speak to a fellow-soldier in the free- 
 dom of his tent, or to a fellow-citizen away 
 from camp, in precisely the tone of voice, or 
 the formality of expression, which necessity 
 would demand in his bearing a message to 
 or from his commander. But a soldier can 
 never throw off his obligation of loyalty to 
 his government by throwing off his uniform ; 
 nor can he without criminality ever speak 
 one word, at any time or anywhere, which 
 is inconsistent with the truest fidelity to the 
 interests which he has espoused in his enlist- 
 ment as a soldier. 
 
 A soldier is not always on parade, not 
 always on the march or in battle, not always 
 on guard -duty as such; but a soldier is 
 
76 D UTY-KNO WING AND 
 
 always a subject of his government, and he 
 must not put himself within the enemy's 
 lines, or give aid to the enemy as an enemy. 
 Even though he may meet the enemy socially 
 at a time of truce, that truce will never justify 
 him in betraying his government, or in losing 
 sight of the fact that he is still a soldier, while 
 relieved from the special duties that are deemed 
 most soldierly. Indeed, a soldier is sadly at 
 fault who is not a true man at all times, 
 whether technically on duty or off duty; 
 and he is lacking in true soldierly character 
 if he ever consents to be in any place which 
 his commander might properly call an im- 
 proper place for a man and a soldier. So 
 far a soldier is always on duty. 
 
 And so far, at least, a Christian is always 
 on duty. A Christian is an enlisted soldier 
 of Christ. A Christian's term of enlistment 
 is life-long. So long as he lives, a Christian 
 is bound to be true to his Master, at all times 
 and everywhere; and he ought never to be 
 in a place where he would not welcome his 
 Master's appearing; nor ought he ever to 
 
DUTY-DOIXG. 77 
 
 speak a word which is inconsistent with full- 
 est fidelity to the interests of his Master's 
 cause, as represented by himself. A Chris- 
 tian is not bound to wear his Sunday suit all 
 through the week; but he is bound to be as 
 true a man in one suit as in another. A 
 Christian is not bound to employ at all 
 times precisely the tone of voice that is 
 fitting for words of social or public prayer;- 
 but he is bound to speak always and only 
 as a true-hearted follower of Christ. A 
 Christian is not bound to be always in at- 
 tendance at church or prayer-meeting, or 
 some other religious gathering; but he is 
 bound to be always in that place where, for 
 the time being, it seems to him that he be- 
 longs, and where, above all other places for 
 just that time, he would rejoice to be found 
 by his returning Master. 
 
 If a Christian decides to go to church, it 
 ought to be because he deems it his duty to 
 go there, whatever his inclination may be. 
 If a Christian decides to stay at home, or 
 to go elsewhere than to church, at the time 
 
78 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 of a church service, it ought to be because 
 he deems it his duty to do that instead of 
 the other, whatever his inclination may be. 
 His course, in either case, ought to be so 
 clearly the course of present duty, that he 
 would count it wrong to do anything else 
 than that which he decides to do. It is not 
 that he should go to church if he were now 
 on duty, although he feels justified in being 
 off duty just now; but it is that, being on 
 duty, he ought to go in the direction of 
 duty — toward or away from church. 
 
 If the life of a sick wife pivots on the hus- 
 band's close attention to her at the hour of 
 a church service, it would be wrong for that 
 husband to go to church just then. So, 
 agam, it would be wrong for a watchman, 
 or a policeman, on special duty at a critical 
 time, to leave his post for a seat in church. 
 Yet again, a friend's or a neighbor's imme- 
 diate necessities may call more loudly for a 
 man's helpful ministry than the church bell 
 calls for his part in worship. Duties never 
 conflict. Where a man belongs for the time 
 
DUTY-DOING. 79 
 
 being, there the man ought to be for the 
 time being. 
 
 Recreation is a duty in its place; as much 
 a duty as is worship or toil. When recre- 
 ation is a Christian's duty, a Christian has 
 no right to refrain from recreation in order 
 to toil or to worship. But no Christian 
 ought to take recreation, unless he supposes 
 that recreation is just then a duty — the su- 
 preme duty of the hour; any more than he 
 ought to toil, or to worship, unless he sup- 
 poses that toil, or that worship, is just then 
 the supreme duty of the hour. Social inter- 
 course is a duty in its place; it has its claims, 
 as well defined as the claims of closet devo- 
 tions, or of personal study or home relaxa- 
 tion. When social intercourse is the Chris- 
 tian's duty of the hour, nothing on earth 
 should stand in the way of the Christian's 
 devotion to social intercourse as his duty 
 for the hour. 
 
 So, also, it is in every sphere of personal 
 conduct; a Christian ought never to ask, Shall 
 I now attend to duty, or follow my personal 
 
8o DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 inclinations? But a Christian may ask, 
 What is my duty at just this time? That 
 question answered, his pathway is plain. 
 The Christian as a Christian is always on 
 duty; and he must never follow his inclina- 
 tions, unless those inclinations coincide with 
 his duty. 
 
 If a Christian is inclined to make a friendly 
 call, or to go to a simple social gathering, or 
 to a concert, or to a dancing assembly, or to 
 a theater, the practical question which should 
 come home to him is not, May I, at the 
 present time, go to this place without harm 
 to my Christian life, or to the cause of 
 Christ? But the Christian ought to ask 
 himself the question — if indeed he is in any 
 doubt as to the imperative nature of the call 
 on him — Is it my duty to go to this place 
 just now? And when, in such a case, a 
 Christian sees his duty plainly, that Chris- 
 tian ought to pursue his course accordingly, 
 regardless of the cost to himself, or of the 
 opinion of othersj To his own Master he 
 standeth or falletn; and whatever may be 
 
DUTY-DOING. 8 1 
 
 thought of his course by his fellows, the 
 Christian should see to it that he is always 
 to be found where he knows his Master 
 would have him to be, and where he would 
 rejoice that his Master should find him at 
 His appearing. 
 
 A common feeling with a Christian, as he 
 considers some questionable mode of recre- 
 ation or of indulgence, is : This isn't the best 
 thing in the world for me to attend to, I 
 know very well. But I do want to have a 
 part in it; and I don't believe my Master 
 will really object to my going, or will blame 
 me very much if I do go. At all events, I 
 will take the risk, and go. But the feeling 
 which alone can justify a Christian in his 
 course, at such a juncture, is: All things 
 considered, I deem it my duty to go in this 
 direction. I believe that my Master wants 
 me to go, and that he would count me 
 untrue to duty if I remained away. There- 
 fore I will go. 
 
 There is never an instant in any Christian's 
 life when he may not be summoned just then 
 
82 D UTY-KNO WING. 
 
 to meet his Master, and to render an account 
 of his service. Hence it is that at every in- 
 stant it is a Christian's duty to be doing just 
 that which he is sure would have his Master's 
 approval as the closing act of that Christian's 
 earthly service. 
 
 Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, 
 when he cometh, shall find so doing ! 
 
IX. 
 
 AL WA YS READ Y FOR ORDERS. 
 
 Over against that spirit of lawless personal 
 independence which prevails so widely among 
 men, there is a counter spirit of loyal de- 
 votedness which influences and controls those 
 who want to do right unselfishly. There are 
 those who would brook no control, whose 
 supreme desire is to act their own pleasure 
 in their own way. And there are those who 
 would subject themselves unreservedly to 
 authority, doing just what they are directed 
 to do because they are directed to do it. The 
 one spirit is all wrong. The other spirit is 
 right in itself, but it is liable to be misdirected, 
 and so to lead one astray. 
 
 To one who wants to do right always, and 
 at every cost, there is a certain attractiveness 
 in the idea of implicit obedience to a lawful 
 superior. It relieves a man of a sense of per- 
 
 83 
 
84 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 sonal responsibility for a choice in each par- 
 ticular case, to be told by his superior just 
 what he is to do day by day and hour by 
 hour. Said a young Christian worker, who 
 had been a private soldier in the Union Army : 
 " I never had such rest of mind as while I 
 was in the army. Then I'd no trouble over 
 questions of duty. The sergeant settled all 
 that for me. Every morning he gave me 
 my orders: 'Guard torday;' 'Fatigue to- 
 day ; ' ' Policeing to-day ; ' ' Inspection to-day ; ' 
 'Picket to-day ;' /Marching to-day/ That 
 was enough. All I had to do then was to 
 obey orders. But now I'm worrying all the 
 time, whether I ought to do this thing or do 
 that. I wish I had somebody to tell me my 
 duty plainly/' And this young soldier's state 
 of mind is illustrative of a widespread feeling 
 among men- — and women — everywhere. 
 
 This feeling it is which is the peculiar 
 strength of the "Society of Jesus" — the Jes- 
 uit order. Every member of that order has 
 made a solemn vow of obedience, binding him- 
 self absolutely to the commands of his supe- 
 
DUTY-DOING. 85 
 
 rior in that order. Counting those commands 
 as representative of the Divine commands, he 
 holds himself in readiness to stand or to 
 move, as he is thus directed. So far, he has 
 no will of his own. His will is subordinated 
 to the will of his superior. And so far he 
 feels relieved of all responsibility for a choice 
 of the sphere or the methods of his personal 
 duty. 
 
 This feeling it is that is the soul of all the 
 monastic orders, and of all the brotherhoods 
 and the sisterhoods in the Roman Catholic 
 Church. And this feeling, again, it is that 
 impels so many young men and young women, 
 in some Protestant denominations, to desire 
 to put themselves under personal superiors, 
 with vows of obedience to those superiors. 
 It cannot be said that there is any purely sel- 
 fish spirit in this feeling. On the contrary, 
 the admirableness of its self-abnegating loy- 
 alty to an authority that is looked upon as 
 standing for Divine authority, cannot be de- 
 nied. The real question is, whether the eva- 
 sion of personal responsibility for decisions 
 
86 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 in matters of duty which is thus secured is 
 consistent with the commands of God and 
 with the development of a true Christian 
 character. 
 
 It is in matters of religious teaching and 
 of religious duty that Christ explicitly forbids 
 his disciples to subject themselves to the com- 
 mands of a human superior. " Call no man 
 your father on the earth," he says: "for one 
 is your Father, which is in heaven." And he 
 adds : " Neither be ye called masters : for one 
 is your master, even the Christ." And of 
 the personal responsibility of every individ- 
 ual for his own course, as directed by his 
 own Master the Christ, the inspired injunc- 
 tion is : " Let each man be fully assured in 
 his own mind. . . . For whether we live, we 
 live unto the Lord; or whether we die, we 
 die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, 
 or die, we are the Lord's. ... So then each 
 one of us shall give account of himself to 
 God." And because each individual disciple 
 is immediately responsible to Christ here, and 
 must give an account for himself to God here- 
 
DUTY-DOING. 87 
 
 after, it is not right for any such disciple to 
 subject himself, in implicit religious obedi- 
 ence, to any human superior on earth. To 
 his one Lord he standeth or falleth; and he 
 is to allow no man to interpose, as a final 
 authority, between himself and his Lord. 
 
 A disciple of Christ is a servant of Christ 
 and a soldier of Christ. The attitude of both 
 a good servant and a true soldier is that of 
 unfailing readiness to receive and to obey the 
 orders of master or commander. "The Lord 
 . . . before whom I stand," — stand in wait- 
 ing, ready for orders, — is the way in which 
 Elijah and Elisha spoke of Him whose will- 
 ing and faithful servants they were. " I also 
 am a man set under authority, having under 
 myself soldiers," said the Roman centurion 
 to our Lord at Capernaum; "and I say to 
 this one, Go, and he goeth; and to another, 
 Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, 
 Do this, and he doeth it." And it was 
 the application of this spirit and method of 
 service to the sphere of Christ's own work, 
 that won our Lord's rare commendation: "I 
 
88 D UTY-KNO WING AND 
 
 say unto you, I have not found so great faith, 
 no, not in Israel. 
 
 Neither servant nor soldier, in any ser- 
 vice, has a right to put himself into any posi- 
 tion where he is not free, and where he will 
 not be ready, to obey instantly and explicitly 
 the immediate commands of his one master 
 or his one commander. And any vow of 
 obedience, or any obligation of any other 
 sort, which shuts out a disciple of Christ 
 from receiving and obeying new orders di- 
 rectly from Christ himself, is an obligation, 
 or a vow, in plain conflict with specific duty, 
 and is inconsistent with the right attitude of a 
 servant and soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ 
 
 One of the ways in which a Christian young 
 man is likely to put himself in a wrong 
 attitude before his Master, is by deciding in 
 advance that his sphere of Christian service 
 shall be in one direction, and not in another, 
 and by pledging himself to continued ser- 
 vice in that chosen direction only. It is not 
 that a young man may not rightly have his 
 preferences, and make his plans accordingly; 
 
DUTY-DOING. 89 
 
 but it is that, with his preferences and plans 
 as they are, he must continue in an attitude 
 of willingness to heed any new call to a new 
 sphere of duty; and he must refrain from 
 any vow of obedience, or specific pledge of 
 future action, which would stand in the way 
 of his change of course accordingly. 
 
 Every young Christian is in duty bound to 
 be in that field of service where his Lord 
 would have him be; and he is equally bound 
 to change his field of service as often as his 
 Lord shall indicate his will to have him make 
 a change. He has a right to prefer, and to 
 plan, and to begin to prepare, to be a mer- 
 chant, or a banker, or a farmer, or a manu- 
 facturer, or a physician, or a lawyer, or an 
 editor, or a minister, or a missionary, if, in- 
 deed, it seems to him that that service is the 
 service to which he is called of God. But 
 he has no right to vow in advance that he 
 will be in the one or the other of these fields 
 of service, whatever are the subsequent indi- 
 cations of the Lord's wish in his behalf. 
 
 It would, for example, be wrong for a 
 
90 D UTY-KNO WING AND 
 
 young Christian student so to bind himself by 
 a solemn pledge to be a merchant or to be a 
 physician, that he would be hindered by that 
 pledge from entering the Christian ministry, 
 if he had subsequent reason for believing 
 that Christ wished him to be a minister. 
 And it would be no less wrong for him so 
 to bind himself by a similar pledge, early 
 in his student course, to serve the Lord as a 
 minister or a foreign missionary, as to shut 
 himself out from the privilege of receiving 
 new light on his personal duty, and of shap- 
 ing his course by that light 
 
 In fact, a young Christian has no more 
 right to vow that he will be a missionary 
 in the distant future, than to vow that he 
 will not be a missionary in the distant fu- 
 ture. He has a right to vow that he will 
 do whatever Christ calls him to do, and to be 
 wherever Christ wants him to be, and that 
 he will change his business or his field as 
 often as Christ wants him to change it; and 
 under the obligations of this vow it is his 
 privilege and his duty to be always in the 
 
DUTY-DO LXG. 9 1 
 
 attitude of service, always ready to receive 
 and obey orders, doing meantime the duty of 
 the hour, whether that duty be one of prepa- 
 ration or of performance. 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose that any human 
 superior, however good or wise he may be, 
 can tell us our personal duty better than 
 Christ himself can show it to us. It is a 
 mistake to suppose that any vow of obedi- 
 ence to a human superior can relieve us from 
 our individual responsibility to decide on our 
 Christian duty- in every, case that is before us 
 for decision. It is a mistake to suppose that 
 we can decide for ourselves now, better than 
 Christ can decide for us by and by, where we 
 can best serve Christ in the years to come. It 
 is a mistake to suppose that a vow of de- 
 votedness to any one branch of Christian 
 service is in itself so commendable that it 
 can properly stand between the disciple of 
 Christ and the new directions of Christ, 
 
 The true spirit of the servant and soldier of 
 Christ is a spirit of readiness to be and to do 
 anything, and to stand or to go anywhere, at 
 
92 D UTY-KNO WING. 
 
 the command of Christ. The true attitude of 
 the servant and soldier of Christ is an attitude 
 of readiness to receive and to obey the com- 
 mands of Christ, day by day and hour by 
 hour. Let every disciple of Christ beware 
 of any vows of obedience, or any solemn 
 pledges of service, which may stand in the 
 way of this spirit and this attitude. 
 
HOW TO RECOGNIZE THE 
 MASTER'S ORDERS. 
 
 To be always ready for orders is a higher 
 plane of Christian character than to be 
 always ready for active service; and just 
 here is where many a Christian soldier mis- 
 takes his attitude toward his Divine Com- 
 mander: he knows he is ready for active 
 service, and he thinks that that is the same 
 as being ready for whatever orders may come 
 to him, from Him whose he is, and before 
 whom he stands. It is the Commander's 
 right to delay orders, or to withhold them, 
 to assign every soldier to active service, or 
 to continue him in inaction; and it is the 
 soldier's duty to await the Commander's 
 orders, even though he remains in inaction 
 to the end of the campaign. This is, per- 
 haps, the hardest truth to learn in the army 
 
 93 
 
94 D UTY-KNO WING A ND 
 
 of the Divine Commander, in its comparison 
 with the army of an earthly commander. 
 
 When a man enlists in the army of a 
 human government, he has reason to feel — 
 whether he realizes it at once or not — that 
 the fact of his enlistment makes him a part 
 of the sustaining force of that government; 
 and that from this time onward it is for the 
 government to decide where he shall be 
 employed, and how; and that he has no 
 personal responsibility in the premises, be- 
 yond that of being ready for orders — until 
 the orders have come to him. The govern- 
 ment, as represented by the commanding 
 general, knows that such a soldier is borne 
 on the rolls, and that he is available for 
 a place in the plans of the government. 
 Henceforward it is for the commanding 
 general to decide whether that man shall 
 be sent at once to the front, or shall be 
 retained at the rear; whether he shall re- 
 main in a reserve squad of unemployed 
 recruits, or shall be set to some seemingly 
 unimportant duty in an out-of-the-way place. 
 
DUTY-DOING. 95 
 
 It may indeed seem to the man himself, 
 who is kept in inaction, — it often does in 
 such a case, — that his abilities are not recog- 
 nized, and that a mistake is made in not 
 assigning him to more active, as well as to 
 more honorable, service, and he may chafe 
 under the duty of non-doing; but as a true 
 soldier he will leave the responsibility of all 
 that with his commander, and he will do, 
 or not do, according to that commander's 
 wishes. 
 
 It would never do for a new recruit to de- 
 sert the post to which he is assigned, or even 
 to leave the recruiting-office where he had 
 enlisted, in order to go off and look up ser- 
 vice for himself; for it might be that just 
 when he had started out in that way, the 
 orders would come to the place where he 
 was supposed to be, assigning him to a ser- 
 vice for which he had been held back, all 
 this time. And here it is that the true 
 soldier spirit is in being always ready for 
 orders, whether the orders are hastened or 
 are delayed ; for the question of service, like 
 
96 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 the question of orders, is to be settled by the 
 commander, and not by the soldier. 
 
 But when a man enlists in the army of 
 Christ, his first thought is likely to be — and 
 not improperly so — a thought of service ; 
 and his immediate attitude is commonly 
 that of an outlook on the field of action, 
 rather than that of an uplook toward the 
 source of personal direction. He thinks of 
 what he can do y without considering the 
 question whether perhaps his Commander 
 would have him do nothing just yet, save 
 "only stand and wait." And then, when he 
 has run hither and thither seeking methods 
 of efficient service, without finding such re- 
 sults of his endeavor as he had anticipated, 
 he begins to wonder whether he has under- 
 stood his Commander's orders; although, 
 indeed, he may never have put himself in 
 the attitude of waiting for orders, and of 
 being on the watch for them. Here it is that 
 soldiers of Christ need to understand that he 
 who is always ready for orders is as ready to 
 accept an order to do nothing as to accept an 
 
DUTY-DOING. 97 
 
 order to do much, provided only it is his 
 Commander who issues the order. 
 
 "It seems such a woful waste 
 
 Of precious talent and time, 
 To be lying here day after day, 
 
 Just in my life's best prime, — 
 With such a weight on my breast, 
 
 And such a mist in my brain, 
 That I little or nothing know 
 
 Save that living is only pain, — 
 When I might be doing some work 
 
 Or saying some helpful word, 
 To hasten Thy kingdom on — 
 
 But thou knowest best, O Lord ! 
 
 "Thy purposes will not fail 
 
 Because of my idleness, — 
 The stars in their courses fight 
 
 For the cause which thou dost bless, — 
 The angels move at thy word 
 
 Swifter than light of sun, — 
 And the patient soul works best 
 
 When it prays ' Thy will be done ! ' 
 It may be that never again 
 
 I shall march, with the plow or the sword ; 
 It may be — No matter. Amen ; 
 
 For thou knowest best, O Lord! " 
 7 
 
98 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 That is the spirit of the soldier of Christ, 
 who is always ready for orders — service or 
 no service. His doing, or his not doing, 
 is left to Him who alone has the right to 
 decide on that point. 
 
 Nor is there any danger that he who thus 
 stands ready to receive and to obey his Com- 
 mander's orders — whether those orders in- 
 volve action or inaction on his part — will 
 prove himself more slothful, or more ineffi- 
 cient, than he who makes his own standard 
 of practical service, rather than his Com- 
 mander's standard, the test of his fidelity to 
 his Commander. Soldiers who best retain 
 their discipline and their vigilance while held 
 in reserve during the crash of battle, are 
 surest to move forward steadily under the 
 sharpest fire when the order comes for them 
 to take their place in the advance. 
 
 The first question which Paul, as a new 
 Christian recruit, asked of his Commander, 
 was, "What shall I do, Lord?" But instead 
 of being at once assigned to active service, 
 Paul was left three days in utter blindness, 
 
DUTY-DOING. 99 
 
 and without food or drink, and then was 
 kept for three years in the desert of Arabia, 
 apparently doing nothing at all in the way 
 of active campaigning. This was the be- 
 ginning of that process of divine training 
 which enabled Paul at last to say, "I have 
 learned, in whatsoever state I am, therein 
 to be content." 
 
 Who would, however, say that Paul was 
 worth less as a Christian soldier when he 
 was in this latter frame of mind than when 
 he was in the former, now that he thought 
 more of his Commander's orders than of his 
 own opportunities of service? That spirit 
 of consecration which identifies the disciple 
 of Christ with his Master, so that the disciple 
 rests or works, stands or moves, at the call 
 of the Master, never hesitating, never doubt- 
 ing, is the highest possible attainment of a 
 Christian disciple; and it secures the greatest 
 possible efficiency to the disciple when the 
 Master orders him to a special service. 
 
 It is true that a readiness for service is 
 involved in a readiness for orders, and that 
 
IOO DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 he who stands waiting to be directed by his 
 Commander ought to be willing to go to the 
 ends of the earth, and to endure all toil and 
 all trials in the line of such service, if that 
 be the mission which is assigned to him. 
 But it is for the Commander to decide where 
 each individual soldier shall serve him, and 
 how; and it is for the soldier to obey orders 
 accordingly, whether he can see the relations 
 of those orders to the service which obvi- 
 ously needs doing, or not. 
 
 A soldier in the army of an earthly com- 
 mander does not expect to have the plan of 
 campaign disclosed to him in advance, nor to 
 know what part in that campaign his personal 
 services may have. But a soldier of Christ 
 is apt to feel that he ought to know, to begin 
 with, just what part he is to perform in the 
 great sweep of God's providences, and just 
 what share he is to have in the final results ; 
 and in the lack of this knowledge he is 
 prone to wonder why it is that he is left 
 without it, and without the accompanying 
 orders to enable him to make the knowledge 
 
DUTY-DOING. 1 01 
 
 available. Here it is that many a soldier of 
 Christ is not in an attitude to receive orders 
 from his Commander, because he mistakenly 
 supposes that no orders are to be looked for 
 unless they involve some special service, be- 
 yond his present sphere of inaction — or of 
 seemingly unimportant doing. 
 
 As a matter of fact, no soldier of Christ 
 was ever without explicit orders from his 
 Commander, nor ever need be in doubt as 
 to his duty in view of those orders. Nor 
 will any soldier of Christ be unable to recog- 
 nize the new orders of his Commander, if he 
 is in true readiness to receive such orders, 
 and his Commander desires him to have 
 them. Where a man comes into the service 
 of Christ as a new recruit, he already has 
 the order from his Commander to abide 
 faithful in the calling wherein he was called; 
 to be truer than before as a son, as a brother, 
 as a husband, as a father, as a servant, as a 
 clerk, as an employer, as a student, as a man 
 of business, as a professional man, — in what- 
 ever was, and is, his legitimate sphere. And 
 
102 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 if no other orders come to him from his 
 Commander, to the day of his death, it is 
 a great thing for himself, and for the cause 
 of Him whom he represents in that sphere, 
 if he prove faithful and true just there. He 
 has, in that event, heeded the orders already- 
 received, and has been in the attitude of readi- 
 ness to receive and to heed other orders. 
 Christ asks no more than this from any sol- 
 dier of his, at any time, or anywhere. 
 
 But how shall one know that one call or 
 another which comes to him from without, 
 suggesting a larger sphere of service, or a 
 smaller, is an order from his Commander, 
 or is a temptation to him to turn away from 
 duty? This is the question which perplexes 
 many a soldier of Christ who desires to be 
 faithful; and it is a question which cannot 
 be answered by an explicit formula adapted 
 to all cases alike. There are certain limits, 
 however, to the sphere within which alone 
 an order from the Divine Commander can 
 be received. No order from Christ will in- 
 volve the doing of that which is wrong in itself, 
 
DUTY-DOING, 1 03 
 
 nor will it involve a breach of trust in the 
 sphere of present obligations. No emergency 
 of Christ's cause ever justifies a dishonest 
 transaction or an untruthful statement. 
 
 No Christian mother ever yet received an 
 order from Christ to neglect a sick child at 
 her home in order to teach a Sunday-school 
 class; nor did any Christian policeman ever 
 receive an order from Christ to desert his 
 beat for the hour in order to attend a prayer- 
 meeting. It cannot be that a man is ever 
 ordered of Christ to lack in true fidelity to 
 his parents in their special need, in order 
 that he may enter the ministry ; nor can any 
 call to the foreign missionary field be from 
 Christ, if it involves a shirking of already 
 existing obligations in the home field, on 
 the part of him who is called. Every order 
 which comes from Christ to any one of his 
 disciples will be a call which is consistent 
 with every existing duty of that disciple, and 
 which in itself involves no violation of the 
 teachings of God's Word or of the require- 
 ments of a sound reason. Only within these 
 
104 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 boundaries can a soldier of Christ properly 
 recognize any orders as coming from his 
 Divine Commander. 
 
 To the disciple who would receive new 
 orders from Christ, within the legitimate 
 boundaries of such order-giving, it is in- 
 dispensable that he have an assured faith 
 in his Master's readiness to give him those 
 orders, to the extent of his fullest need. 
 On this point the Bible teaching is em- 
 phatic and unmistakable. "If any of you 
 lacketh wisdom," says the apostle, "let him 
 ask of God, who giveth to all liberally, and 
 upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. 
 But let him ask in faith, nothing doubting: 
 for he that doubteth is like the surge of the 
 sea driven by the wind and tossed. For let 
 not that man think that he shall receive any- 
 thing of the Lord." Until a disciple is sure 
 that Christ will speak in his hearing all the 
 orders he needs to have, his ears are in no 
 state to receive the orders that Christ does 
 speak to him; for it is the hearing that fol- 
 lows the faith, not the faith that follows the 
 
DUTY-DOING. 105 
 
 hearing, in the true disciple. Only he who 
 is confident that orders are always surer to 
 come with explicitness from his Divine Com- 
 mander than they w 7 ould be to come from 
 any human commander, is ready to listen 
 aright for those orders. But when a dis- 
 ciple of Christ asks direction of his Master, 
 at a point where he is in honest doubt as to 
 his duty, believing that he shall receive it, he 
 does have it. 
 
 All that it is right for any disciple to ask 
 is wisdom for the moment, wisdom for the 
 next step; and when, having asked such 
 wisdom, the disciple decides, in the light 
 that is then given him, as to the point of 
 duty then pending, he is bound as a true 
 disciple to accept that decision as his Com- 
 mander's decision, regardless of any sub- 
 sequent disclosure of the consequences of 
 that decision. And it is never right for him 
 to look back with regret upon a step taken 
 in accordance with such wisdom-seeking, in 
 faith, as this. Yet he must be as ready to 
 turn in a new direction, or to turn back in 
 
1 06 D UTY-KNO WING. 
 
 his former direction, as he was to move in 
 this direction, if new orders come to him at 
 another time. The one decision is for the 
 one time, and not for all other times. 
 
 The chief trouble is that most of us want 
 to walk by sight, instead of walking by faith ; 
 we want to see far in advance of our present 
 position, instead of seeing only at our feet. 
 We shrink from being always ready for 
 orders, without ever knowing that at last 
 we are in the sphere where our waiting or 
 our working will accomplish an important 
 service in the cause of our Master. If only 
 we are contented to do much, to do little, or 
 to do nothing, as our Master shall direct, 
 and if we never seek new orders while the 
 duty of the present moment is apparent in 
 the light of former orders, we shall be in the 
 right attitude toward our Master, and we 
 may be sure that whatever orders he has for 
 us to hear, he will make plain to us beyond 
 a perad venture. 
 
XL 
 
 THE SIN OF WORRYING. 
 
 The discomfort of worrying, everybody ad- 
 mits; but its sinfulness is not so generally 
 recognized. Worrying habits are supposed 
 to be of the personal temperament, and there- 
 fore inevitable. Those who indulge in them 
 are sorry that they must do so; but they 
 never think of classing those habits with 
 stealing, and lying, and impurity of speech 
 or action, in their manifest inconsistency with 
 a Christian profession. Yet no wrong-doing 
 whatsoever is more clearly a sin to the Chris- 
 tian disciple than is worrying: none more 
 clearly dishonors Christ, or may be supposed 
 to grieve him more. 
 
 Worrying is being in nervous anxiety lest 
 things are going wrong, or lest unsupplied 
 need is coming. It is having a restless timid- 
 ity as to the results, or consequences, or in- 
 
 107 
 
108 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 sufficiency, of things done, or of things doing 
 or to be done — by one's self or by others. 
 Worrying is therefore the plain evidence of 
 a lack of confident belief that the ordering 
 and guiding and controlling of one's self and 
 one's affairs, and of all things which may 
 directly or indirectly affect one's interests, 
 are sure to be wise and loving, and for that 
 person's individual welfare. 
 
 Worrying is consistent with the blind grop- 
 ing of the infidel, or the pitiful helplessness 
 of the fatalist; it is incompatible with a 
 true Christian trust. Yet the one all-essen- 
 tial thing to a Christian is trust. Whatever 
 else he lacks, a true disciple must have con- 
 fidence in his Master. Without faith it is 
 impossible to please that Master, to honor 
 him, or to be faithful in his service. What 
 failure then could be worse than a failure in 
 that which is of chief importance? 
 
 Think how worrying distrustfulness would 
 appear, if it were manifested by your own 
 child toward yourself in ordinary home life. 
 Suppose your son, whom you love with all 
 
DUTY-DOING. 109 
 
 your heart, were in the habit of having and 
 showing a nervous fear lest somehow he 
 should be in danger or need at the very 
 point where you are always readiest and best 
 able to provide for him. Suppose you found 
 him in tears on some autumn day because 
 winter was coming on, and he might lack 
 comfortable clothing to keep him from freez- 
 ing. Suppose he should start back, or cry 
 out in terror, when you took up the carving- 
 knife at the dinner-table, as though it were to 
 be used against him instead of for him. Sup- 
 pose he were continually moaning or trem- 
 bling over the possibility of being forgotten 
 or neglected by you — and this in a home of 
 affection and plenty, and of never-failing care. 
 Suppose you found, that way down in his 
 heart your child disbelieved in your love 
 for him, or distrusted your ability to be a 
 good and true parent in the days of his de- 
 pendent childhood. Which would be the 
 worse in your sight — such distrustfulness as 
 this on his part, or common boyish wilful- 
 ness and disobedience? Could any misdoing, 
 
HO D UTY-KNQ WING AND 
 
 indeed, be more truly a wrong against you, or 
 an evil in him, than such unchildlike, unnatu- 
 ral questioning of your ability and goodness? 
 Do you think that your Father in heaven is 
 less desirous than an earthly parent, of the 
 confidence of his children? Do you think 
 that the Saviour attaches less importance than 
 you do to that trait of character which he 
 makes the supreme test of discipleship ? How 
 then can you suppose that the worrying which 
 grows out of and evidences distrust can be 
 less truly a sin in his sight than the more 
 bald immoralities of dishonesty, untruthful- 
 ness, or impurity? 
 
 Christian disciples, trusting believers in the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, are, because of their faith, 
 adopted into God's family. They are made 
 God's children, "and if children then heirs; 
 heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ. ,, 
 Henceforth they are to be cared for in all 
 things just as well as God can care for them. 
 He has them constantly in mind. He con- 
 siders each hair of their heads as an object 
 of his particular providence. He directs the 
 
DUTY-DOING. Ill 
 
 universe with a certain reference to their in- 
 dividual requirements and desires. " To them 
 that love God, all things " — not some things, 
 but all things; all things that they know any- 
 thing about, and all things that God knows 
 anything about — "work together for good." 
 However it may seem to them, all the work- 
 ings of God's plans, all the orderings of his 
 providence, all the happenings in their lot, 
 are just the best that possibly could be; just 
 the things that they ought to be glad over. 
 
 Christians have no more right to worry 
 over one thing than over another that belongs 
 to God's care. It is as really wrong for them 
 to worry over the weather as over the plan 
 of redemption. It is no less truly a sin for 
 them to worry because of their family rela- 
 tions, or their position in society, than it 
 would be for them to worry about the posi- 
 tion of the earth in the planetary system. It 
 is alike wrong for them to worry over the 
 existence of sin in the world, or over their 
 state of health, present or prospective. In all 
 these things, in his ordainings and in his per- 
 
112 D UTY-KNO WING AND 
 
 mittings, God " hath done whatsoever he hath 
 pleased," and "he hath done all things well." 
 This, it is the duty of God's children to rec- 
 ognize and to rejoice in. If they worry over 
 any of his doings, or over his failure to do, 
 they are unchildlike children; they are wick- 
 edly ungrateful and faithless. 
 
 What right have you, as a Christian hus- 
 band and father, to worry over the fear that 
 you may die and leave your family unpro- 
 vided for? Unprovided for! Would not 
 your wife and children be safe in God's keep- 
 ing? Which would be the easier, — for you 
 to provide for them without God's care, or 
 for God to provide for them without your 
 care? The question is not whether they need 
 your ministry, it is whether God needs it. 
 Cannot he do his w r ork for these loved ones 
 of his without your assistance? Will he not 
 do it, if he has promised to ? These are the 
 points you are really in doubt about. Here 
 is where your worry comes in. And why 
 should you, as a mother, worry lest in case 
 of your death your dear boy should suffer 
 
DUTY-DOING. 113 
 
 from a lack of your loving care; or lest 
 while you live you should prove unable to 
 do the best thing possible for him ? Whether 
 you live or die, are not you and yours de- 
 pendent wholly on God's love and wisdom? 
 What need of worry, then, in view of either 
 alternative ? 
 
 Why worry over your professional duties 
 or your business interests? Are not these 
 included in God's oversight and guidance? 
 Will he consent that you shall have failure 
 or lack in them — as he counts lack and fail- 
 ure? Why not go on in the line of your 
 daily duty with the sublime assurance that 
 the result of your labor — in spite of all mis- 
 fortunes and of all opposings — is sure to be 
 the very best that God can make it? Where 
 is the place for worry, with that conviction? 
 Have no worry lest your child should be run 
 over by the cars, or otherwise injured, on his 
 w r ay to school. God has given his angels 
 charge over that boy to keep him in all his 
 ways; and they shall bear him up in their 
 hands, lest he dash his foot against a stone; 
 
114 D UTY-KNO WING AND 
 
 or if, indeed, he receives bodily harm while 
 in the way of duty, understand that that very 
 injury shall prove the richest of blessings to 
 him and to you. So also about the small-pox 
 or the scarlet-fever in your household of little 
 ones. Have no worry over the fear of it. 
 " There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall 
 any plague come nigh thy dwelling ;" or if 
 the pestilence should be within your doors, 
 you will have reason to know that it is there 
 as a messenger of good to you and yours. 
 
 Thus in the greatest things, and thus in 
 the least. Thus in the things of the present, 
 and thus for the things of the future. " Be 
 not anxious [have no worry] for your life," 
 said our Lord, "what ye shall eat, or what 
 ye shall drink ; nor yet for your body, what 
 ye shall put on." "Your heavenly Father 
 knoweth that ye have need of all these 
 things:" — cannot he be trusted to supply 
 them? "Be not therefore anxious" — worry 
 not — " for the morrow : for the morrow will be 
 anxious for itself;" and for to-morrow as for 
 to-day your interests are safe in the hands of 
 
DUTY-DOING, 1 15 
 
 Him who is "the same yesterday, and to-day, 
 and forever." 
 
 There are two very good reasons why you 
 ought never to worry. One is, that it is a 
 sin to do so ; the other is that it does no pos- 
 sible good, and is liable to do a great deal of 
 harm. You cannot unsay what you said 
 when you made those calls yesterday, or 
 while your friend was calling on you. It is 
 too late now to add the things which you 
 wish you had said; and there is no good way 
 for you to make the explanations or excuses 
 which seem to you to be needed. You will 
 only unfit yourself for your next duties by 
 worrying over the imperfect performance of 
 those last attempted. Moreover, if you were 
 now to see the case as God sees it, you would 
 be convinced that the very things you are 
 inclined to worry over, as said or done in the 
 past, are really a cause for your thankfulness 
 instead of for your worrying and regrets. 
 They are all in God's providential leadings. 
 Good is sure to come of them. Leave them 
 all with your loving Saviour, in confidence 
 
1 1 6 D UTY-KNO WING. 
 
 that they will tend to the very result you. 
 ought most to desire. 
 
 There was nothing that seemed to grieve 
 our Lord more while he was here on earth 
 than the distrust of him shown by his disci- 
 ples. Has he changed since then? How 
 often he referred to this: "O thou of little 
 faith, wherefore didst thou doubt ?" "Why 
 are ye fearful, O ye of little faith ?" "O faith- 
 less and perverse generation, how long shall 
 I be with you ! how long shall I bear with 
 you!" "Have faith in God!" "Be not faith- 
 less, but believing." "If ye have faith as a 
 grain of mustard seed." "If thou canst be- 
 lieve, all things are possible to him that 
 believeth." " Howbeit," he said, as if almost 
 in despair of the successive generations of 
 his professed disciples down to his coming 
 again, "when the Son of man cometh, shall 
 he find faith on the earth?" Shall he? that 
 is the question. If he finds it in your heart, 
 he will not find you worrying ! 
 
XII. 
 THE ONE ALL-DIVIDING LINE. 
 
 There is just one line in the universe that 
 never varies — that is ever and always the 
 same; and that is the line that separates truth 
 from falsehood, — the true from the false. All 
 other lines are variable and relative ; at times 
 they are in one direction, and at times they 
 are in another; this line alone is fixed and 
 absolute. Good and bad are relative terms; 
 so also are light and darkness, life and death ; 
 but not so are truth and falsehood. They 
 never change places; they are in primitive 
 and in eternal opposing. 
 
 The conception of this all-dividing line 
 
 between truth and falsehood, between the 
 
 true and the false, is the one conception that 
 
 is back of and above our very conception of 
 
 a personal God; it is the one test to which 
 
 we bring all claims of a revelation from God. 
 
 117 
 
1 1 8 D UTY-KNO WING AND 
 
 It is, in fact, the one standard by which God 
 himself, and all his ways and all his words, 
 must both primarily and ultimately be judged. 
 What is truth, and what is falsehood, what 
 things are true, and what things are false, 
 may indeed be questions for study and for 
 discussion; but that God is true, and that 
 all that is of God is the truth, that all false- 
 hood is in opposition to God, and that all 
 that is false is outside of and is over against 
 God, — cannot be in question or in fair dis- 
 cussion. An admission of doubt here, or a 
 concession at one of these points, is fatal to 
 a conception of God as God. 
 
 If God be not true, then God is false; and 
 the very suggestion of a false God is the sug- 
 gestion of a God who is not God. Every 
 word of God is true, or by its very exhibit 
 of falsity it is proved to be not of God. 
 Hence both God and the words of God are 
 true, and are the truth, or they are contrary 
 to God, and can never represent God. 
 
 The line that separates truth and falsehood, 
 the true and the false, divides between God 
 
DUTY-DOIXG. 119 
 
 and his opposers. God himself is always on 
 one side of that line, never on the other. If 
 we were to conceive of God as at any time 
 on the other side of the line which divides 
 the true and the false, we must thereby rec- 
 ognize God as so far false, and as so far no 
 longer God. And whatever is beyond that 
 line, whether it be of personality, of word, 
 or of act, is over against God; is, so far, in 
 irreconcilable hostility to God. 
 
 It was this dividing line between truth and 
 falsehood that Jesus recognized and gave 
 emphasis to as separating himself and his 
 opposers — as the representatives, respec- 
 tively, of God and of the Devil. " "If God 
 were your Father, ye would love me/' he 
 said, "for I came forth and am come from 
 God. ... Ye are of your father the Devil. 
 . . . There is no truth in him. When he 
 speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own : for he 
 is a liar, and the father thereof. But because 
 I say the truth, ye believe me not." Nor 
 was that line a new line arbitrarily drawn by 
 Jesus. It was, and is, and is to be, the one 
 
1 20 D UTY-KNO WING A ND 
 
 absolute line in all the universe, dividing be- 
 tween God and his opposers; between those 
 who are God's and those who are the Devil's. 
 From the beginning, and so down to the 
 present, and so on henceforth forevermore, a 
 lie has been, and is, and ever must be, of the 
 Devil; and in order to be a liar, one must be 
 on the side and in the service of the Devil, 
 without any possibility of qualification or of 
 exception in any form whatsoever. 
 
 It is not necessary to go to the Ten Com- 
 mandments to find whether or not a lie is 
 specifically forbidden there; nor yet to search 
 the Bible in order to ascertain if a lie is ever 
 justifiable by the precepts of that Book of 
 books. The idea of truth is back of the Bible 
 and back of the Ten Commandments. If it 
 could be shown that the Ten Commandments 
 or any other portion of the Bible were a lie, 
 or an attempted justification of a lie, that 
 would in itself be so far a condemnation of 
 that portion of the Bible, and would indicate 
 its origin — from him who "is a liar and the 
 father thereof.' , "God is true." God is "a 
 
DUTY-DOING. 121 
 
 God of truth." " God desireth truth." " No 
 lie is of the truth. " God himself cannot lie; 
 nor can he justify in another that which is 
 essentially hostile to his own nature, and 
 which is the distinctive mark of hostility to 
 himself. God can forgive a lie; but God 
 cannot justify a lie; for if a lie or if the justi- 
 fying of a lie were in God, or were of God, 
 God would cease to be God, — the true God, 
 the God of truth unvaryingly. 
 
 A clear recognition of this truth of truths 
 concerning the one all-dividing line of the 
 universe would settle in advance every one 
 of those questions of casuistry which men 
 puzzle over when they ask themselves whether 
 or not a lie may at some time, or under some 
 circumstances, be justifiable. In the light of 
 this truth of truths, every such question would 
 better be stated : Is it ever right or wise to 
 cross the line that separates God and his 
 enemies? Is it ever justifiable to turn against 
 God, and to enter the service of the Devil? 
 That is the real state of the case ; for no man 
 can tell a lie without crossing that line, and 
 
122 D UTY-KNO WING AND 
 
 so putting himself in hostility to God ; since 
 not even God himself can make a lie other 
 than a proof of the Devil's service. 
 
 One of the specious ways by which men 
 delude themselves, or are deluded, into be- 
 lieving that a lie may, in certain contingen- 
 cies, be justifiable, is by supposing that a lie 
 may, in an emergency, be necessary to the 
 guarding of a loved one's honor, or to the 
 saving of a loved one's life. On this suppo- 
 sition, they think that they could, perhaps, 
 show how true they were by proving them- 
 selves false; that they might be so true, in- 
 deed, as to lie in evidence of their fidelity. 
 But in order to save a friend by a lie, it is 
 necessary, as a preliminary, to cross the line 
 that separates God from his enemies, and to 
 enter the service of the Devil in defense of 
 the friend who is imperiled by the provi- 
 dence of God. 
 
 To be wholly frank in such a case, the 
 tempted one might turn his face God-ward 
 and say explicitly : " In this emergency, Lord, 
 I decide to desert thy service, and to commit 
 
DUTY-DOING. 1 23 
 
 myself and my friend to the care of the Devil. 
 I would have preferred to remain in thy ser- 
 vice, and under thy protection ; but in this 
 strait I cross over into the Devil's domain, 
 and for myself, and for my loved one, I defy 
 thee." Can that seem to be right, or prudent? 
 Judge ye, one and all. 
 
 To admit that one would be willing to lie 
 in an emergency, is only another way of ad- 
 mitting that one would be willing to desert 
 God and to enter the Devil's service — for a 
 consideration. If men realized that this is 
 always the fact, they would be more reluctant 
 to confess to a doubt as to the unvarying ob- 
 ligations of truth — under all circumstances, 
 and at whatever cost. 
 
 In all efforts at duty-knowing and at duty- 
 doing, it is to be borne in mind that the path 
 of duty never crosses the line that separates 
 truth from falsehood. Falsehood and duty 
 are incompatible. Truth and duty are in- 
 separable. It cannot be a duty to tell a lie 
 or to be false, even to save a life, to save a 
 soul, or to save a universe — if that were pos- 
 
1 24 D UTY-KNO WING. 
 
 sible. It is a duty not to He, not to be false, 
 under any circumstances, even though the 
 heavens must fall as a consequence of the 
 refusal. He who is on the falsehood side of 
 the one all-dividing line of the universe can- 
 not but be separated by that line from duty 
 and from God. God himself could not make 
 it otherwise. 
 
XIII. 
 DOING AS ONE HAS A MIND TO. 
 
 A bright New England boy, who had 
 been well trained in a Christian home, was 
 about to start out to find employment in a 
 neighboring village. A quaint old uncle of 
 his, one of those shrewd men of the world — 
 men of sound sense and few words — who 
 are peculiar to his region of country, said he 
 wanted to give the boy some parting advice, 
 and would like him to come over and spend 
 the day at his house to get it. The boy 
 went, accordingly. 
 
 After dinner, the uncle took the boy out for 
 
 a walk into the woods. When they were fairly 
 
 by themselves, there in the woods, the old 
 
 man turned suddenly, and, looking his nephew 
 
 full in the face, said impressively: "Andrew, 
 
 always do as you have a mind to. That's 
 
 my parting advice to you." And at once he 
 
 125 
 
1 26 D UTY-KNO WING AND 
 
 turned back toward the house, with no word 
 of explanation or further counsel. 
 
 Those words rang in that boy's ears ; and 
 as he thought them over, their meaning grew 
 on him. He realized that his uncle saw that 
 his great danger away from home would be 
 from bad examples ; and that it was his duty 
 to do what was right — to do what he knew 
 it was best to do — in spite of others* doing 
 differently. The counsel to him was to have 
 a mind, and stick to it; to act independently, 
 in the line of the promptings of his own well- 
 trained judgment and conscience. And it 
 was very good advice to him. 
 
 Most young people do not do as they have 
 a mind to ; in fact they have no mind to do 
 anything : they do as others do, without any 
 intelligent purpose — or mind — about it. There 
 is the trouble with the little boys who want 
 to wear stand-up collars, and swing little 
 canes, and make-believe smoke cigarettes, 
 like so many bigger boys. There is the 
 trouble with the young men who want to 
 dress beyond their means, and really smoke 
 
DUTY-DOING. 1 27 
 
 pipes or cigars, and drink an occasional glass 
 of wine or of beer, as "all the other fellows 
 do." There is the trouble with the young 
 girls who want to watch the fashion-plates 
 and conform to them, and will make a dis- 
 play not justified by their parents' means. 
 There is the cause of most of the card-play- 
 ing, and dancing, and theater-going, and 
 Sabbath breaking, and quitting of Sunday- 
 school, and neglect of worship, by those 
 who have been trained to do differently, 
 but w T ho now find that those about them 
 say this is the way to do. If these young 
 folks, little and larger, only had a mind, and 
 would do as they had a mind to, they would 
 pursue a better course, and be a great deal 
 more manly and more womanly in their 
 spheres. 
 
 Having a mind and sticking to it is a very 
 rare thing in the world — among older folks 
 as among younger ones. The great mass 
 of people do not decide — nor do they want 
 to decide — for themselves what they are to 
 do. They prefer to follow the crowd. Car- 
 
128 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 lyle suggests that he has sometimes thought 
 he would like to stop each man of the busy 
 throng hurrying along the Strand in London, 
 and ask him his personal history and pur- 
 poses ; but " No/' he adds, " I will not stop 
 them. If I did, I should find they were like 
 a flock of sheep following in the track of one 
 another." There are very few persons who 
 decide for themselves what to wear, how to 
 furnish their houses, what summer resort to 
 go to, in what style to live, what to read, 
 what amusements to have in their own 
 homes, or what to permit to their children 
 elsewhere. They find out what is the fashion 
 in all these things; what is generally ap- 
 proved; and that settles the case for them. 
 They never do as they have a mind to. 
 They have no mind about life and duty, one 
 way or another. 
 
 Yet the man who does as he has a mind 
 to is almost always looked up to with re- 
 spect by those who do not do as they have 
 a mind to. Another sensible New England 
 man once counseled his son after this sort: 
 
DUTY-DOING. 1 29 
 
 " My son, if you want to have the respect of 
 your companions, I will tell you how you 
 can secure it. If you won't drink, or use 
 tobacco, or dance, or play cards, you will be 
 respected if you have nothing else than this 
 to recommend you. You will be a leader, 
 through this self-denial, even if the other 
 boys have more brains, or more money, or 
 more friends, than you have." That boy, at 
 once, had a mind to try that thing; and 
 thenceforward he did as he had a mind to. 
 
 The father had wisely named the very- 
 vices of his neighborhood; and the son was 
 constantly tempted to do as others did in 
 these things. His steady resistance of temp- 
 tation was like regular exercise in a moral 
 gymnasium to him. His moral muscles grew 
 strong. His moral form stood erect and firm. 
 His independence was complete. His com- 
 panions weakened by huddling together and 
 moving along in a mass. He had room and 
 fresh air on every side. His course did com- 
 mand a certain respect, just as his father had 
 said it would. And independence of this 
 9 
 
1 30 D UTY-KNO WING AND 
 
 sort — such doing as one has a mind to — is 
 sure of winning respect everywhere and 
 always. If only our boys and girls could 
 be made to see this, how largely they would 
 be the gainers! By being wisely indepen- 
 dent, by deciding for themselves what to 
 wear, what to eat and drink, what to do, 
 what companions to have, — they would be 
 worthier of respect; and they would have 
 respect, too. 
 
 Of course it is necessary to have a right 
 mind, before it is safe to do as you have a 
 mind to. But when you know what is best, 
 when your mind is convinced that a certain 
 course is the correct one, then do as you 
 have a mind to, even though you act all 
 by yourself; even though you go counter to 
 the example and the advice of all your rela- 
 tives, and all your neighbors. Understand, 
 however, that being singular is not necessa- 
 rily being independent. That which is fash- 
 ionable may be the best thing for you to 
 wear — as, again, it may not be. A book 
 which is popular may or may not be worth 
 
DUTY-DOING, 131 
 
 your reading. Some of the prevailing styles 
 of furniture maybe just suited to your house 
 and your taste. Many of the customs of 
 your neighborhood may be those which you 
 ought to approve. On all these things you 
 are to decide intelligently for yourselves, and 
 then do as you have a mind to. 
 
 If you think you can afford to live in that 
 house you are looking at, and it seems 
 adapted to your family, hire it; but if it is 
 beyond your means, go and find a cheaper 
 rent, even though your friends think it be- 
 neath your station. If you do not look upon 
 a person whom you meet at the homes of 
 most of your acquaintances as a fit associate 
 for your family, do not admit him to your 
 house, whatever others may think or say. 
 If that new style of bonnet is becoming to 
 you, wear it, even if it is in the fashion; but 
 if it is not becoming to you, wear one of a 
 style that is — at the risk of seeming peculiar. 
 If frizzing and banging and scalloping the 
 hair are all the rage, and you think that 
 neither style would be appropriate to your 
 
132 D UTY-KNO WING. 
 
 face, abjure them each and all, even if yours 
 is the only fair forehead in the community. 
 You will be sure to win and hold respect 
 from those whose good opinion you most 
 value, through such independence in little 
 things or great. You will be looked upon 
 as above, as well as apart from, the multitude 
 you refuse to follow. 
 
 Stand in the place God has given you to 
 fill. Find out what God would have you to 
 be, and to do, and to say — and then be, and 
 do, and say it fearlessly, independently. In 
 all things be guided by God's teachings, 
 not by the opinions of those about you. 
 " Let this mind be in you which was also 
 in Christ Jesus;" and then "do as you have 
 a mind to." 
 
XIV. 
 MAKING DRUDGERY DIVINE. 
 
 A large part of duty-doing is drudgery. 
 There is drudgery in every department of 
 life's work — drudgery that is indispensable to 
 success in that work. Hamerton says : " Real 
 work of all descriptions, even including the 
 composition of poetry (the most intoxicating 
 of all human pursuits), contains drudgery in 
 so large a proportion that considerable moral 
 courage is necessary to carry it to a success- 
 ful issue." But there is such a thing as en- 
 nobling drudgery, as making and counting it 
 an essential part of that which is noble and 
 — in a sense — divine. As Ruskin puts it: 
 "There is no action so slight, nor so mean, 
 but it may be done to a great purpose, and 
 ennobled therefor; nor is any purpose so great 
 but that slight actions may help it, and may 
 be so done as to help it much, most espe- 
 
 i33 
 
134 D UTY-KNO WING A ND 
 
 cially that chief of all purposes, the pleasing 
 of God. Hence George Herbert: — 
 
 ' A servant with this clause 
 Makes drudgery divine; 
 Who sweeps a room as for thy laws, 
 Makes that and the action fine.' " 
 
 It is the light in which we look at the work 
 we have to do, which settles the question 
 whether we count it mere drudgery or a de- 
 sirable service. Severe exercise and scanty 
 fare seem very different to a young man, 
 when they are the necessity of poverty, from 
 what they seem when he is in training for a 
 college boat-race. In one case he thinks of 
 his deprivations ; in the other, of his hope of 
 glad triumph. The details of every-day busi- 
 ness in a counting-room are one thing to a 
 clerk who has no thought beyond earning 
 his wages, and quite another thing to a part- 
 ner in the house who expects to make a for- 
 tune through attention to those details. And 
 when a clerk is fired with ambition to prove 
 himself so useful there that he also shall be- 
 come a partner, the more he has to do the 
 
DUTY-DOING. 135 
 
 better. What is treadmill-stepping to his 
 companions, is ladder-climbing to him. 
 
 Toiling up a mountain side is wearisome 
 work to one who thinks only of the rugged 
 path and the cheerless surroundings; but it 
 is an inspiriting effort to the enthusiastic lover 
 of nature who anticipates a matchless view 
 of grand and beautiful scenery from the sum- 
 mit. If a poet or a painter were to consider 
 alone the tedious strokes of his pen or his 
 brush, he would give up effort in despair or 
 disgust; but when he looks forward to his 
 completed work of genius, with its profit and 
 joy to others and its delight and added fame 
 to himself, his bounding heart carries his 
 hand cheerily over paper or canvas — as in 
 processes of creation rather than as in tasks 
 of servility. 
 
 But there is nothing in any hope of per- 
 sonal gain which so ennobles service, so ren- 
 ders drudgery a delight, as the fact that that 
 service — drudgery though it may be — is for 
 the welfare and happiness, or is at the call, 
 of one whom we love. A young man who 
 
1 36 D UTY-KNO WING AND 
 
 would otherwise think it quite beneath him 
 to carry a package through the street, or to 
 call like an expressman to gather packages 
 from several points along the way, would be 
 only too glad to do all this for a young lady 
 whose favor he was seeking, especially if she 
 were by his side meantime. There is no 
 limit to a true friend's readiness to make 
 efforts and sacrifices in evidence of his friend- 
 ship. He has no thought of drudgery while 
 doing anything which can please or advan- 
 tage his friend. "'My friend' will not count 
 it any trouble to do this for me," may be said 
 confidently in any call for service on one who 
 is worthy of the name of friend. 
 
 Perhaps there is no life on earth where 
 there is so much of drudgery — and, for a 
 time, so little else — as the life of a young 
 mother. It is do, do, do, for that exacting, 
 helpless baby, day and night, week in and 
 week out. Distasteful things, patience-try- 
 ing things, strength-exhausting things, must 
 be done for the troublesome child; and when 
 they are once fairly done, they are all to be 
 
DUTY-DOING. 1 37 
 
 done over again. What mother could endure 
 this if she looked only at the drudgery side 
 of it? But it is her darling who calls for it; 
 and as long as that darling has need of it, 
 her service is ennobled, and she finds joy in 
 its performance. It is the thought of all this 
 loving care and patient endurance of the 
 parents in the days of one's infancy, that 
 makes a dutiful son or daughter glad to do 
 or to endure for a father or a mother enfee- 
 bled with age, and possibly in the helpless- 
 ness of a second childhood. There is no dry 
 drudgery in the ministries of affection then 
 called for by that parent. Grateful recollec- 
 tions make every possible service a privilege 
 and a pleasure. 
 
 And above all, that which glorifies service, 
 and which makes drudgery divine, is the 
 thought that it is for Him who should be 
 dearer than parent or child, than husband or 
 wife, than brother or friend. All proper ser- 
 vice, all needful drudgery, of the Christian 
 believer, is just this — nothing less, nothing 
 more. St. Paul urged it on slaves who were 
 
138 D UTY-KNO WING AND 
 
 under the Roman yoke to count the daily- 
 tasks assigned to them by their heathen mas- 
 ters as the Lord's call to service. "And 
 whatsoever ye do," he said, " do it heartily, 
 as to the Lord, and not unto men." Jesus 
 declares that in the great day his test of the 
 fidelity of his disciples will be their humble, 
 faithful ministry to the poor and the needy 
 on earth who loved and trusted him. " Verily 
 I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it 
 unto one of the least of these ttiy brethren, 
 ye have done it unto me." 
 
 Yet just here is where there is greatest 
 danger of counting as drudgery that which 
 is a divine ministry. In all specific service 
 for Christ there is much of dry detail to be 
 attended to, which may be counted weari- 
 some and ignoble when it ought to be looked 
 at as glorious and ennobling. In a thoughtful 
 address to young clergymen, Dean Vaughan 
 calls attention to a most suggestive antithesis 
 in the original form of St. Paul's words to 
 the Thessalonians, "Be not weary in well 
 doing." The kalos and the kakos of the 
 
DUTY-DOING. 1 39 
 
 Greek there are the "beautiful" and the 
 "base;" so that the injunction might read: 
 "Wax not base in your beautiful life." Bring 
 not down to mere drudgery that which is a 
 service divine. Think not of this visiting of 
 the sick, of this attending on hospital or mis- 
 sionary society committees, of this leading 
 of prayer-meeting exercises, of this prepar- 
 ing of sermons, of this writing of newspaper 
 articles, of this teaching in the Sunday-school, 
 as a tedious and perfunctory service; but 
 look at it all and always as representative 
 work for the King of kings, and the Lord 
 of lords. "There is no work so small, no 
 act so mean," says godly John Tauler, "but 
 it all comes from God, and is a special gift 
 from him." 
 
 It is this nobler and diviner way of view- 
 ing every duty to which a servant of Christ 
 may be called that is illustrated by the words 
 of John Newton, when he says: "If two 
 angels were sent down from heaven to exe- 
 cute the divine command, and one was ap- 
 pointed to conduct an empire, and the other 
 
1 40 D UTY-KNO WING. 
 
 to sweep a street, they would feel no inclina- 
 tion to change employments." 
 
 He whose work is only for itself and for 
 himself will find his best work drudgery. 
 He who lives and labors lovingly for Jesus 
 will make all drudgery divine. 
 
 " Forenoon, and afternoon, and night, — Forenoon, 
 And afternoon, and night, — Forenoon, and — what ! 
 The empty song repeats itself. No more ? 
 Yea, that is Life : make this forenoon sublime, 
 This afternoon a psalm, this night a prayer, — 
 And Time is conquered, and thy crown is won." 
 
XV. 
 
 THE PRACTICAL GAIN OF ONE 
 THING AT A TIME. 
 
 No single element of personal power is 
 greater and more potent than singleness of 
 power, or than the power of singleness. No 
 man can be so much of a man, in any one 
 direction, as when he is a w r hole man in that 
 direction. He who can concentrate his whole 
 being, all his energies and all his capabilities, 
 for the compassing of the one thing on which 
 his mind is fixed for the time being, is obvi- 
 ously more potent, in behalf of that object 
 of his endeavor, than would be possible were 
 his energies divided, and were only a portion 
 of himself given up to that for which he is 
 striving. And this power of concentration 
 it is that makes the man of pre-eminent 
 practical efficiency in any and every sphere 
 of human endeavor — material, mental, and 
 
 141 
 
142 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 spiritual — from the lowest plane to the 
 highest. 
 
 It is when the eye is "single" — capable of 
 fixing itself on one object of vision to the 
 exclusion of all others — that the whole body 
 is full of light Doubleness of vision — see- 
 ing two things at a time instead of one — is 
 as fatal to the eyesight as it is to mental 
 action; and a " double-minded " man is un- 
 stable in all his ways. The man who can 
 do one thing better than anybody else, is 
 sure to be the man who looks upon that one 
 thing as every way worthy of his doing, and 
 who can say with all his heart, This one 
 thing I do — though everything else be left 
 unattended to. 
 
 This mental power it is that constitutes 
 "devotion," — the state of being given up 
 wholly to the specific object of interest, — 
 whether that devotion be to pleasure, to self- 
 interest, to business, to art, to science, to 
 human affection, or to the highest service of 
 God. Devotion is singleness, is concentra- 
 tion, is absorption, in the direction of the 
 
DUTY-DOING. 143 
 
 one supreme and exclusive object of interest 
 in the sphere of that devotion. He who 
 lacks in the power of devotedness, lacks in 
 the power of practical efficiency in the 
 sphere in which he is called to live and 
 to labor. 
 
 It was said of Lord Brougham, that his 
 devotedness to the one object of his striving 
 was always such that he seemed to live ex- 
 clusively for what he was living for; that if, 
 indeed, he had been only a boot-black he 
 would never have been satisfied short of 
 being the best bootblack in the United King- 
 dom. And it is that sort of devotedness, 
 that sort of singleness of power, that is 
 always a distinguishing element of greatness 
 of character. If you know the peculiarities 
 of any man of marked pre-eminence, — as a 
 statesman, as a soldier, as a financier, as a rail- 
 road manager, as a manufacturer, as a busi- 
 ness man in any sphere, — you know that 
 that man has the power, in an exceptional 
 degree, of giving himself to one thing at a 
 time — to the apparent exclusion of every 
 
1 44 D UTY-KNO WING AND 
 
 other subject of thought for the time being. 
 However many things there are which de- 
 mand his attention, his undivided thought 
 is for the moment given to the one thing 
 that for the moment requires his attention. 
 Even his ability to turn rapidly from one 
 subject to another, is his ability rapidly to 
 change the objects of his concentrated 
 thought; not his ability to attend to more 
 than one thing at one and the same time. 
 
 It is said that Julius Caesar was capable 
 of dictating letters to six different amanuen- 
 ses simultaneously; but that is only another 
 way of saying that he was able to turn so 
 rapidly from one thing to another, without 
 allowing the one to interfere with the other, 
 that he could keep six men at work, noting 
 the results of his sixfold singleness. One 
 thing we know, that unless Caesar kept the 
 other five letters out of his thought for the 
 instant, the one letter which he was then 
 dictating would lack the impress of his un- 
 divided personality, and so would have been 
 a failure as a letter from Caesar. This power 
 
DUTY-DOING. 145 
 
 of letting other things alone for the moment, 
 it is that enters into the power of giving one's 
 self wholly to the thing which demands at- 
 tention for the moment. And this is single- 
 ness of mind. 
 
 "It is not work, but worry, that kills," we 
 say; and we say truly, so far. Work is labor 
 in the direction of the one thing we have to 
 do. Worry is distracting thought about 
 other things than the one thing we are doing. 
 Work is dictating the one letter we have to 
 dictate for the moment. Worry is anxious 
 thought about the other five letters with 
 which, for the moment, we have nothing to 
 do. Devotedness intensifies work, while it 
 excludes worry. If we could only be wholly 
 devoted to our proper work in hand, we 
 should never be hindered by that worry 
 that accomplishes nothing, and that destroys 
 much good. 
 
 This truth is a truth that is as applicable 
 
 to the ordinary work of the housekeeper, 
 
 in her every-day home life, as it is in the 
 
 realm of the commander of an army, or of 
 10 
 
146 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 the sovereign of an empire. Not many 
 things, but one thing, should have the whole 
 attention for the time being. Attention to 
 the one thing is the "work" that brings 
 good results without breaking down the 
 worker. Distracting thought about the many 
 things is the "worry" that destroys the wor- 
 rier, even while hindering his, or her, present 
 efficiency in labor. 
 
 It was just at this point that there was the 
 chief difference between Martha of Bethany 
 and Mary of Bethany; albeit this is not the 
 distinction which the commentators are ac- 
 customed to find in the record of these two 
 sisters. Martha could seemingly never attend 
 to one thing at a time to the forgetfulness of 
 all things else. Mary could always give her- 
 self to the one thing of the hour, regardless 
 of all other concerns. "Martha was dis- 
 tracted ['cumbered,' our version gives it, but 
 the Revision notes it in the margin as more 
 literally 'distracted/ 'drawn two ways at 
 once'] about much serving." She was in a 
 worry over the things that she could not do, 
 
DUTY-DOING. 147 
 
 as well as over those which she had to attend 
 to. Her mind was always a divided mind, 
 never at rest on one thim*;. Even the cook- 
 ing of a dinner could not absorb her. She 
 must run from the kitchen to the sitting- 
 room, and concern herself over Mary's inac- 
 tion, and over the apparent lack of thoughtful 
 sympathy on the part of Jesus. Had Mary 
 been with her in the kitchen, Martha would 
 have been likely to feel that somebody ought 
 to look after their guest, and so to worry over 
 his being left by himself. 
 
 Not work, but worry, was what distracted 
 Martha, and hindered her effective serving. 
 When her brother Lazarus was dead, Martha 
 could apparently not be so absorbed in her 
 very mourning but that she could have an 
 eye down the road to watch for the coming 
 of Jesus, while he was yet outside of the 
 village, on his way from Jericho. In addi- 
 tion to her one occupation for the hour, 
 Martha must always worry herself over other 
 things also. How different it was with Maiy! 
 When she sat and listened, she sat and lis- 
 
143 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 tened — dinner or no dinner. When she gave 
 herself to mourning, she forgot everything 
 but her duty and privilege of sisterly sorrow. 
 Although Martha had left her to go out and 
 meet Jesus, Mary could not stir from her 
 attitude of grief until she was spoken to, 
 and told that Jesus wished to see her. When 
 she was moved to an act of loving devoted- 
 ness, she lavishly poured out her unstinted 
 treasures of affection, as if there were no 
 other use of precious gifts than their be- 
 stowal on the then object of her devoted- 
 ness. Mary always surrendered herself to 
 the one thing she had to occupy her for the 
 moment, with no worrying thought of any- 
 thing outside of that occupation. 
 
 And this distinction it is that Jesus seems 
 to emphasize, in his passing upon the char- 
 acteristics of the sisters severally : " Martha, 
 Martha, thou art anxious and troubled [dis- 
 tracted with worry] about many things: but 
 one thing [not many things, but one thing] 
 is needful [and here is the difference between 
 you and your sister] : for Mary hath chosen 
 
DUTY-DOING. 1 49 
 
 the good part, which shall not be taken away 
 from her." In this declaration, it is plain 
 that Jesus approves the method of Mary, 
 and disapproves the method of Martha. It 
 is also plain that Jesus gives Mary the higher 
 place, because of her attention to "one thing," 
 while Martha fails of that singleness of at- 
 tention through her worrying anxiety over 
 "many things." In other words, Mary rep- 
 resents singleness of endeavor; while Martha 
 represents the distractions of worry — in a 
 divided mind. 
 
 Just here is where commentators gener- 
 ally, as representing human nature generally, 
 are inclined to evade the plain teachings of 
 this incident. Popular sympathy with those 
 who worry while they work, as over against 
 those who work without worry, is so wide- 
 spread, that the feeling is well-nigh universal 
 that Martha's bustling, fussing, worrying way 
 shows more practical efficiency than Mary's 
 quiet, concentrated, absorbed devotedness; 
 and while it is admitted that Jesus, who knew 
 and loved both sisters well, gave Mary the 
 
1 5 O D UTY-KNO WING A ND 
 
 precedence, the opinion seems to prevail that 
 it must have been in a kind of theoretical, 
 unpractical, sentimental sense that Jesus 
 looked at this case as he did. Mary was 
 a very good weak sister, who could listen 
 and pray, and look sweetly solemn all day 
 long; but when it came to downright prac- 
 tical every-day living, Martha was worth a 
 dozen Marys. That is the way the average 
 reader looks at these two sisters. 
 
 Good Dr. David Brown of Aberdeen (of 
 Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown's Commen- 
 tary), for example, puts the case as many 
 another has put it, before and since: "The 
 one represents the contemplative, the other 
 the active, style of Christian character. A 
 church full of Marys would perhaps be as 
 great an evil as a church full of Marthas. 
 Both are needed, each to be the complement 
 of the other." Think of that! A church 
 full of those whose traits Jesus commends 
 would be as great an evil, "perhaps," — yes, 
 perhaps ; that is, if Jesus was mistaken in 
 his judgment of the needs of his church in 
 
DUTY-DOING, 151 
 
 its practical mission on earth, — as a church 
 full of those whose traits Jesus disapproves. 
 Jesus says that only one thing — not "many 
 things," but only "one thing," — is need- 
 ful; but our commentators say "both are 
 needed," — both the character that attends 
 faithfully to one thing at a time, and the 
 character that worries over a great many 
 things also. And here is where the com- 
 mentators differ so squarely with Jesus 
 himself. 
 
 Away with all such nonsense as this! 
 Away with the absurd notion that Jesus 
 disapproved that which was needed in his 
 church, and that he saw a sufficiency in that 
 which was insufficient ! Away with the base- 
 less idea that a worrying woman was more 
 practically efficient than a single-minded, 
 devoted woman ! Mary was better fitted to 
 manage a house, to cook a dinner, to take 
 care of a family, to teach a class, to be at 
 the head of a sewing-society or of a mis- 
 sionary association, or to superintend the 
 work of others in any sphere, than was 
 
152 D UTY-KNO WING AND 
 
 Martha. If Mary had had the dinner to 
 cook, she would have remained in the kitchen 
 until it was cooked. She would not have 
 been running back and forth to complain of 
 others, while her work of dinner-getting 
 ought to absorb her attention. No woman 
 ever yet did more work through her worry- 
 ing, through her being distracted over many 
 things instead of sticking at the one thing 
 of her supreme duty for the hour. There 
 is no place in the church, no nook or corner 
 in all the universe, for the wise play of such 
 worrying as was Martha's. Everywhere and 
 always the single-minded devotedness of 
 Mary is better than worrying, is sufficient 
 unto one's fullest duty in life. 
 
 It is not that Mary had accepted Jesus as 
 her Lord and Saviour, while Martha had not; 
 for both were his disciples; he loved them 
 both ; and the testimony of the one was the 
 testimony of the other to his Messiahship. 
 It is not that Jesus approves a life of inactive 
 contemplation, and that he gives a lower 
 place to zealous activity in his service; for 
 
DUTY-DOING. 1 53 
 
 we know that his example and all his teach- 
 ing were contraiy to this idea. But it is 
 that Jesus commends that which all the 
 experience of the human race shows to be a 
 source of power, — singleness of aim, devo- 
 tedness of purpose, concentration of energy, 
 and an absence of worry over things that 
 are for the moment outside of the realm of 
 one's personal duty. So far let all the 
 world — especially let all who are of the 
 church here in this world — be like Mary, 
 and let no woman, nor any child or man, 
 be like Martha; even though Martha was 
 loved and was forgiven, while she was what 
 she was. 
 
 One thing is better than many things, 
 especially when the one thing is attended 
 to in the absence of worry over all things 
 else. And the truest practical efficiency is 
 ever in devotion to one thing at a time — 
 without worrying. 
 
 Duty-knowing involves the perceiving of 
 the one thing that demands undivided atten- 
 tion for the hour. Duty-doing involves the 
 
154 D UTY-KNO WING. 
 
 giving of undivided effort to the one thing 
 that demands present attention. Duty-know- 
 ing and duty-doing are incompatible with 
 worry or distraction over the possible con- 
 sequences of devotion to that which ought 
 to have present attention, or of neglect of that 
 which cannot receive attention just now. 
 
XVI. 
 
 WHAT IF DUTIES SEEM TO 
 CONFLICT? 
 
 To say that " duties never conflict," is to 
 say that God who directs our path is never 
 confused in his plans, and that he never gives 
 us contradictory orders. But to say that 
 duties never seem to conflict, is to say, that 
 we can perceive in advance all the details of 
 God's plans for us; that we can understand 
 just why we are to do one thing and not 
 another, at the present moment; that it is our 
 privilege to walk by sight, and not by faith : 
 moreover, to say this, is in direct contraven- 
 tion of our personal experience, all the way 
 along the puzzling paths of our daily Chris- 
 tian life. 
 
 Duties do seem to conflict; and this seem- 
 ing conflict is greatest and most trying to 
 those of a sensitive conscience and of a sim- 
 
 i5S 
 
1 5 6 D UTY-KNO WING AND 
 
 pie purpose of right. There is nothing, in fact, 
 more perplexing to the faithful and devoted 
 mother and housewife, in her every-day round 
 of home occupations, than the continual pres- 
 sure on her to decide between apparent duties 
 in seeming conflict. It begins as soon as she 
 rises in the morning, — if indeed she does not 
 have a question before then, whether she 
 ought to rid herself of an aching head by 
 another nap, or rise up and battle the pain as 
 so often before. Ought she to go from one 
 to another of the children, and help or coun- 
 sel each one of them in their preparing for 
 the day? or shall she hasten her own dress- 
 ing, in order to be ready as soon as her hus- 
 band and children for morning prayers in the 
 library, or for the preparing of his early cup 
 of coffee at the breakfast-table. 
 
 And so this seeming conflict of duties goes 
 on, through the day, until her latest puzzle of 
 mind toward the dead of the night, whether 
 she ought now to give up and go to bed for 
 needed rest, or do just one or two more items 
 of called-for mending; or, perhaps, write that 
 
DUTY-DOING. 1 57 
 
 long-postponed letter to a sister or friend — 
 "which she will never find time to answer, un- 
 less she takes the time." It is not a question 
 of her convenience, or her personal prefer- 
 ence, at any one of these points, that per- 
 plexes her; it is only the question of duty, 
 or a question between duties which seem in 
 hopeless conflict. 
 
 And as it is with the wife and mother in 
 her home round, so it is with the business 
 man in his office or outside work. A half- 
 dozen things, or a score, seem pressing him 
 alike for instant attention. He is willing to 
 do any one of them. He is anxious to do 
 first, or only, that which is most important. 
 Duty-doing is his aim; but what is his duty 
 just now? Here are letters to be answered; 
 here are new ones yet unread. Fresh direc- 
 tions must be given to men whom he set at 
 work yesterday; new work must be found 
 for men who have finished their old tasks; 
 other men are waiting to be set at work. 
 Moreover, he must have time to look into a 
 matter of large importance which is to be 
 
158 D UTY-KNO WING AND 
 
 decided upon now if ever; and just at this 
 juncture a caller comes in whom he cannot 
 think it right to refuse to see. Oh, this per- 
 plexing tangle of duties in seeming conflict! 
 This is the most serious difficulty of many a 
 business man. 
 
 Again, the puzzle is between household 
 and business duties, and duties more specifi- 
 cally religious; or between different religious 
 duties. It is not always clear whether fam- 
 ily prayers should be intermitted for the 
 morning, or the children be late at school, or 
 the father be late at his business, when, for 
 one reason or another, the whole family has 
 a late start for the day. Nor is it always 
 clear whether the duty of church-going, or 
 the duty of household watching, has the 
 preference for this particular day. Who can 
 say whether or not a business man ought to 
 leave his business, at a critical juncture in 
 that business, in order to attend an invited 
 conference over an important church work, 
 or to visit a family in pressing need, or to go 
 to a neighbor's funeral? When a minister, 
 
DUTY-DOING. 159 
 
 already pressed with religious duties, and 
 who is ready to use his strength to the utter- 
 most in God's service, is urged to do one 
 thing more in the line of public endeavor, 
 with an apparent prospect of large results of 
 good, and he is not quite sure whether he 
 could stand it or not, — how shall he know 
 whether it is his duty to husband his strength 
 for the work already upon him, or try to do 
 more good in spite of the apparent risk ? 
 
 But there are even graver troubles growing 
 out of the seeming conflict of duties, than 
 any of these perplexities as to the division 
 of time and labor, for activities which are 
 alike important in their several places. It is 
 in matters which involve one's profoundest 
 personal feeling, or where one's relations to 
 others, or one's relations to great interests or 
 to fundamental principles, are involved, that a 
 seeming conflict of duties is most oppressive 
 and bewildering. It is when one's duty to 
 truth, or perhaps even to public justice, is in 
 seeming conflict with one's duty to a dearly 
 loved one, that that conflict is appalling. 
 
1 60 D UTY-KNO WING AND 
 
 It is when the duty to give a warning coun- 
 sel or a kindly criticism at the risk of doing no 
 good, but of shutting off all hope of possible 
 service in that direction, stands over against 
 the duty of refraining from all unnecessary 
 disturbance of pleasant relations between 
 one's self and another; it is when the duty 
 of taking a stand for the right seems in con- 
 flict with the duty of guarding one's influ- 
 ence for good over those who will be surely 
 aggrieved by this stand; it is when the duty 
 of considering another's feelings confronts 
 the duty of acting for another's interests in 
 spite of that other's feelings ; it is when the 
 duty of preserving one's good name from the 
 possibility of suspicion is face to face with 
 the duty of being faithful at every risk to 
 obligations which God knows to be rightly 
 binding, but which the world about one can- 
 not know of or understand ; it is when one's 
 clear duty to one person seems to be in con- 
 flict with one's equally clear duty to another 
 person ; it is when one's duty to the present 
 is apparently irreconcilable with one's duty 
 
DUTY-DOING. l6l 
 
 to the future; it is when one's duty to have 
 peace of mind antagonizes one's duty to do 
 that which for the time being makes peace of 
 mind an impossibility ;— it is when there are 
 such seeming conflicts of duty as these (and 
 who has not been called to them ?) that sim- 
 ple duty-doing appears to be a task beyond 
 one's possible attainment. 
 
 What shall one do, when duties thus seem 
 to conflict? It is very easy to say that the 
 conflict of duties is only a seeming one ; that 
 in the very nature of things it is impossible 
 that more than one duty can be the supreme 
 duty at any one time; and that the supreme 
 duty of the hour is, in a sense, the only 
 real duty of the hour; but, admitting all this, 
 the question is still an open one: How can 
 one decide as to the supreme duty of the 
 hour, in order to the doing of that duty at 
 every risk, and in the face of all that con- 
 fronts it? If the conflict of duties is a seem- 
 ing one, the bewilderment in view of that 
 seeming conflict is an unmistakable reality. 
 
 In the first place, it must be understood 
 
1 62 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 that the path of duty is not always the direct- 
 est path. With the winds and the waves as 
 they are, it is a rare thing for a sailor to be 
 able to enter a port, or to leave it, without 
 " beating" in or "beating" out; tacking now 
 in one direction and now in another; moving 
 hither and thither from side to side, with 
 never a single stretch directly toward the 
 objective point of all his counter-movements. 
 His course seems contradictory; each tack 
 is in an opposite direction from the one he 
 made before it, and from the one which is to 
 follow this ; and every tack is wellnigh clear 
 across the path he fain would take. 
 
 But for his conviction, from experience, that 
 this zigzag progress is the only one possible to 
 him, the sailor would lose heart in his strug- 
 gle with opposing currents. As it is, however, 
 he tacks, and tacks again, and by this seeming 
 conflict of purposes moves steadily toward 
 his goal, helped onward by his apparent vacil- 
 lations as surely as the swaying pendulum 
 carries forward the hands on the dial of time 
 by moving alternately from side to side. 
 
DUTY-DOING. 1 63 
 
 Similar to this must be our course on the 
 ocean of life, with the opposing currents of 
 wind and tide as they are. We cannot hope 
 to enter any desired port except by " beat- 
 ing" in; and every time we "tack" we must 
 necessarily seem to be at cross purposes with 
 our real endeavor. In moving along on the 
 one course of duty now open to us, we must 
 move athwart the main direction of our de- 
 sires and purposes, and, for the time being, 
 in an opposite direction from that which but 
 recently we knew to be our only path for 
 then. In view of this truth, we are not to 
 trouble ourselves about the seeming direc- 
 tion of our next movement, or its apparent 
 trend; but are only to decide that it indicates 
 our duty for the hour, and leave the result to 
 Him who controls the winds and the waves 
 with which we are struggling. 
 
 It is the one duty of the hour that we are 
 to recognize as our duty for the hour. To 
 ascertain that duty, to distinguish the one 
 real duty from the many apparent duties, may 
 require a careful balancing of various inter- 
 
1 64 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 ests, and of conflicting feelings and relations ; 
 but, when that immediate duty is ascertained, 
 it must be recognized as, for the time being, 
 above all else; as practically standing alone, 
 the only present duty of our lives. Then, we 
 must move on in that direction, even though 
 we seem to be moving to sure destruction, 
 or to the disregard of interests and of loved 
 ones dearer to us than life itself. 
 
 We may, indeed, for the time being, seem 
 to be risking our influence, endangering our 
 good name, compromising our position, neg- 
 lecting important enterprises, causing need- 
 less discomfort to others, failing to improve 
 the great opportunities of our life -course, 
 bringing discomfort to ourselves, and yielding 
 that which it would be a priceless privilege to 
 enjoy, — but there is no proper alternative to 
 us ; this is the one thing for us to do. And, 
 so sure as God is true, if we do go forward 
 fearlessly, it will ultimately be found that the 
 doing of this duty is perfectly consistent with 
 every other duty of our lives; for duties never 
 conflict, however they may seem to do so. 
 
DUTY-DOING. 1 65 
 
 Again we must know, that God does not 
 intend for us to have an easy time in life; to 
 see the path of duty at a glance, or to ascer- 
 tain it without prayerful study under the 
 guidance of the Holy Spirit. Being bewil- 
 dered, and groping on in the darkness, are a 
 part of the discipline of our earthly proba- 
 tion. This seeming conflict of duties in our 
 daily path is no inconsiderable element of 
 that suffering of believers, whereby they "fill 
 up that which is behind of the afflictions of 
 Christ" in their flesh. The suffering is severe, 
 and the bewilderment is disheartening; — 
 
 " Yet courage, soul ! nor hold thy strength in vain, 
 In hope o'ercome the steeps God set for thee, 
 For past the Alpine summits of great pain 
 Lieth thine Italy." 
 
 And if indeed your prayer be earnest and 
 unfailing, that the Lord your God may show 
 you the way wherein you should walk, and 
 the thing that you may do; and your prom- 
 ise be sincere and heartfelt, "whether it be 
 good, or whether it be evil, we will obey the 
 voice of the Lord;" — then, "though the Lord 
 
1 66 D UTY-KNO WING. 
 
 give you the bread of adversity, and the water 
 of affliction, yet . . . thine ears shall hear a 
 word behind thee, saying, This is the way, 
 walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, 
 and when ye turn to the left," in the seeming 
 conflict of duties — which is only a seeming. 
 
XVII. 
 
 TEMPTATIONS IN THE PATH 
 OF DUTY. 
 
 It is not alone when a man has turned 
 aside from the path of duty, nor yet when 
 he has slackened his interest in the work 
 to which God has set him, that he is liable 
 to be tempted, and that his struggles with 
 temptation are likely to be real and pro- 
 longed. It is a mistake to suppose that 
 one who has a busy hand, and an active 
 mind, and a hearty spirit, in the line of well- 
 doing, shall be shielded from temptation, and 
 shall have no inclination in the direction of 
 misdoing. Temptations assail the believer 
 in the path of duty; and he who perseveres 
 in the right must persevere in spite of temp- 
 tation, not in freedom from it. 
 
 The inspired record of the earthly life- 
 course of him who was alone the Perfect 
 
 167 
 
1 68 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 Man is instructive at this point, as at every 
 other, as a lesson to the Christian believer. 
 It was when Jesus was desiring "to fulfil 
 all righteousness/' and when he was at the 
 highest point of his spiritual privilege, that 
 his first recorded temptations met him ; and 
 the record shows that those temptations were 
 such as are liable to confront any follower 
 of Jesus in the path of his personal duty — 
 as a believer. Jesus was tempted to distrust 
 God's word; he was tempted to presume 
 unduly on God's intervention in his behalf; 
 he was tempted to pursue attractive methods 
 of doing good to others, — instead of accept- 
 ing God's plan of service for him. And what 
 believer in Jesus can say that he has never 
 been tempted in all three of these lines of 
 temptation ? 
 
 Hunger was the occasion of the first temp- 
 tation of Jesus in the wilderness, but hunger 
 was not its cause. The temptation itself was 
 a temptation to skepticism— to doubt or to 
 distrust. Jesus had just been startled, as it 
 were, by the Divine announcement that he 
 
DUTY-DOING. 1 69 
 
 was in very truth the Messiah of God. The 
 heavens had been opened to him; he had 
 been granted the visible presence of the Holy 
 Spirit; and his Father's voice had been heard 
 acknowledging, with approval, his Sonship. 
 Yet here he was, alone in the wilderness, and 
 faint with hunger. Could it, indeed, be true 
 that this was the Son of God ? Doubts would 
 come into the human mind at such a point. 
 "Are you, as has just been said, the Son of 
 God?" whispered, in effect, the Tempter: 
 "If you are truly the Son of God, let your 
 power as such show itself in some miracle 
 of power. Transform the stones into bread, 
 satisfy your hunger, and so find the proof 
 that God's word is true." 
 
 It is not to be understood that the secur- 
 ing of needed bread by a miracle would 
 have been in itself a sin. Jesus did that very 
 thing on more than one occasion afterward. 
 But it was that the transforming of stones 
 into bread, in order to see if God's words 
 were true, would have been an act of sinful 
 distrust. So it was that Jesus resisted the 
 
170 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 temptation, saying, in substance: "My 
 Father's word is better proof of my Son- 
 ship than any miracle wrought by me 
 could be. Not by the nourishing power 
 of bread, but by the sustaining assurance 
 of every word of God, the believer can 
 stand firm at all times. ,, 
 
 And as it was with Jesus, so it should be 
 with the believer. When tempted to dis- 
 trust, because of his present loneliness or 
 need, the follower of Jesus should feel, and 
 should say, "A promise from God is a surer 
 support than a full larder or a surplus bank 
 account. ,, "It is written, Man shall not live 
 by bread alone, but by every word that pro- 
 ceedeth out of the mouth of God." " For 
 we walk by faith, not by sight." Distrust is 
 a sin, and it must not be indulged. The 
 temptation to distrust may be encountered 
 in the path of duty; but only by leaving that 
 path can the temptation be yielded to. 
 
 The opposite extreme from distrust is pre- 
 sumption. He who is sure that God's prom- 
 ises will never fail, may go so far as to 
 
DUTY-DOING. 171 
 
 presume upon those promises as applicable 
 to spheres not included in their provisions. 
 Thus it was that the Tempter came again to 
 Jesus, with the suggestion: "Since you feel 
 sure that God will take care of you accord- 
 ing to his promises, test his loving readiness 
 to do this. Do not doubt him, but put his 
 promise to the proof. He has said that his 
 angels shall have charge of you. Now throw 
 yourself from the temple's pinnacle, and let 
 air who watch you see that you are borne 
 up of God's spiritual messengers, so that you 
 are kept from bodily harm." 
 
 "That would be presumption" was, prac- 
 tically, the response of Jesus. " I can trust 
 God's promise to shield me, in every danger 
 to which God calls me; but I must not seek 
 dangers in order to force, as it were, God's 
 miraculous care of me. It would be as 
 wrong to ask a miracle from him in order 
 to my display of his love for me, as it would 
 be to try to work a miracle myself, in order 
 to see if his promise to me is to be believed. 
 None of us should tempt, or provoke, the Lord 
 
172 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 to leave us to our own ruin, by rushing into 
 dangers which might properly be avoided." 
 
 Every believer in Jesus is in danger of 
 yielding to the temptation to presume on 
 God's promises beyond the proper limit of 
 those promises. It would be tempting the 
 Lord, if we depended on his promise of daily 
 bread without our effort at daily work. It 
 would be tempting the Lord if we were to 
 eat food which is clearly unfit for us, or to 
 drink drinks which would better be left alone, 
 and then were to call on him to keep us from 
 consequent bodily perils. It would be tempt- 
 ing the Lord, if we refused medical counsel 
 and aid in the hour of sickness, and then 
 besought a purely miraculous cure. It would 
 be tempting the Lord if we neglected the 
 help of church attendance and Bible study 
 and choice Christian companionship, and 
 then pleaded with the Lord to enable us to 
 grow in grace and in holy knowledge. And 
 so at almost every point in the path of duty, 
 the believer is tempted to presume, as he is 
 also tempted to distrust. 
 
DUTY-DOING. 1 73 
 
 The third temptation which met the Son of 
 God was one which is likely to meet any fol- 
 lower of the Son of God; namely, the tempta- 
 tion to enter a field of influence and effort 
 that seems to proffer larger results of imme- 
 diate good than those which open before him 
 in his assigned path of duty. The sway of 
 all the kingdoms of earth was held before 
 Jesus as the reward of his turning aside from 
 God's way of work for him. 
 
 This did not come as a bald proposal to 
 Jesus to prostrate himself before the Evil 
 One in literal worship. It was rather a sug- 
 gestion to him to heed some other word of 
 counsel and direction than the explicit com- 
 mands of his Father in heaven. The world 
 was just then waiting for a leader. With 
 his knowledge of the hearts of men and of 
 their true needs, Jesus could have established 
 on earth such a kingdom as the world had 
 never seen; and its aim would have been 
 God's glory and man's spiritual welfare. He 
 had come to be the Saviour of men, and 
 here seemed to be a glorious opening in 
 
1 74 D UTY-KNO WING AND 
 
 this direction. But even this possibility it 
 was not for Jesus to make available to him- 
 self. He was here as a servant; and his 
 duty was to look up to God in reverent wor- 
 ship, ready to accept God's orderings, regard- 
 less of the consequences to himself — even 
 though a cross must be his instead of a crown. 
 Therefore it was that he repelled the tempta- 
 tion to follow any advice which should swerve 
 him in the slightest degree, or for the great- 
 est of rewards, from entire submissiveness to 
 his God — and our God. "Get thee hence, 
 Satan," was his indignant repelling of this 
 temptation; "for it is written, Thou shalt 
 worship the Lord thy God, and him only 
 shalt thou serve." 
 
 It is a natural impulse of a noble mind to 
 desire power for good as a leader of men, 
 and to rejoice in the love of loyal hearts; 
 and a temptation to which the best man on 
 earth is liable is the temptation to move in 
 that direction which gives apparent promise 
 of the largest right influence over the minds 
 and hearts of one's fellows. But the servant 
 
DUTY-DOING. 175 
 
 of God must leave it to God to assign to him 
 his post of duty and his sphere of action — 
 or inaction. When, therefore, one sees that 
 by choosing for himself he may hope to win 
 prominence in state or in church; or to gain 
 the love and honor of multitudes; or to 
 leave a name for himself to coming genera- 
 tions; or even to declare gospel truth to 
 now neglected souls, — he must understand 
 that no proffered results can justify him in 
 being aught else than a waiting or a willing 
 servant of God. And his answer to the 
 Tempter should be unqualifiedly, " Get thee 
 hence, Satan; for it is written, 'Thou shalt 
 worship the Lord thy God, and him - only 
 shalt thou serve' — at any cost." 
 
 Not alone in our lower physical nature, 
 nor yet only when w T e turn aside from the 
 way of right, but in our highest spiritual 
 nature, and while we are in the path of duty, 
 we must meet and battle temptations daily. 
 And in the higher realm, as in the lower, 
 there is both sympathy with us and help for 
 us in the loving heart of Jesus. " For we 
 
1 76 D UTY-KNO WING. 
 
 have not a high priest that cannot be touched 
 with the feeling of our infirmities; but one 
 that hath been in all points tempted like as 
 we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore 
 draw near with boldness unto the throne of 
 grace, that we may receive mercy, and may 
 find grace to help us in time of need. ,, 
 
XVIII. 
 
 DESPONDENCY THROUGH 
 WELL-DOING. 
 
 Active well-doing is rightly supposed to 
 have its reflex as well as its direct value; to 
 benefit him who does the good, as truly as 
 him for whom the good is done; but well- 
 doing is wrongly supposed to bring immedi- 
 ate comfort and satisfaction to the well-doer, 
 as surely as it brings help and cheer to the 
 person who is the object of the well-doing. 
 The popular thought that a man is immedi- 
 ately happy in proportion to the extent and 
 result of his successful outlay for others, is 
 in fact a serious error; for the truth is, that 
 successful well-doing in the highest spheres 
 of unselfish endeavor for others tends directly 
 to personal exhaustion, and often culminates 
 in extreme personal despondency. As temp- 
 tations often beset one in the path of duty, 
 12 177 
 
178 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 so, also, despondency often results from per- 
 sistency in that path. A failure to perceive 
 this truth leads many a despondent well-doer 
 to unjust reproaches of himself; and, on the 
 other hand, it causes many a kind heart to 
 refrain from a proffer of the sympathy and of 
 the encouraging approval, of which the truest 
 well-doer stands in need, at such a time. 
 
 The reflex gain of well-doing is in the de- 
 veloped character of the well-doer; but that 
 gain is ultimate rather than proximate. Ulti- 
 mate gain often comes through proximate 
 loss; and the immediate sense of any loss is 
 depressing rather than inspiriting. Hence it 
 is that the depression through loss is ordi- 
 narily severe just in proportion to the extent 
 of the outlay which is to advantage perma- 
 nently the well-doer. The student who ex- 
 erts himself most strenuously and most 
 effectively in the struggle of an intercollegiate 
 foot-ball match may, indeed, be an ultimate 
 gainer in muscular power through the very 
 outlay of that contest; yet, for the time being, 
 he exhausts himself in the struggle, and an 
 
DUTY-DOING. 1 79 
 
 extreme of physical depression is the immedi- 
 ate result of the loss which is to prove his gain. 
 A brave swimmer who throws himself into 
 the surf in order to rescue a drowning com- 
 panion, is likely to bring a depressing and 
 even an alarming exhaustion to himself just 
 in proportion to the extent and severity of 
 his successful struggle in that rescue; and 
 whatever be his ultimate gain, his immedi- 
 ate loss is unmistakable in its sphere. 
 
 In every such outlay of physical force, the 
 depression through immediate loss is intensi- 
 fied in proportion to the loving desire of the 
 actor to be successful, because of his pro- 
 found personal interest in those for whom he 
 makes the struggle ; for it is when mind and 
 heart are strained to their utmost that all the 
 bodily powers can exhaust themselves to the 
 uttermost in behalf of the one object of su- 
 premest personal endeavor. Hence it is that 
 he ordinarily loses most in the present, who 
 has most to gain in the end — through suc- 
 cessful well-doing. 
 
 Mind and heart are dependent on the body 
 
180 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 for their effectiveness in earnest service here 
 in the flesh ; and when the body has expended 
 its fullest powers at the call of mind and heart, 
 exhaustion of body tends to depression of 
 mind and to despondency of heart, because 
 of the sense of helplessness which is then in 
 body and mind and heart alike. And the 
 greater the strain of loving endeavor, the 
 completer the exhaustion as a result of that 
 endeavor. Illustrations of this principle are 
 to be found all the way along in the records 
 of human history, as also they are given 
 afresh in the personal experience of well- 
 doers on every side to-day. 
 
 An early illustration appears in the Bible 
 story of Abram's triumph over Chedorla- 
 omer. Chedorlaomer was the world's con- 
 queror. From his seat of empire in Chaldea, 
 he had swept westward to re-subjugate the 
 province of Canaan. Flushed with victory, 
 he was returning with his spoils of war, 
 when Abram, the representative of moral and 
 spiritual power, rose up for the rescue of his 
 captive kinsman, and pursued the conqueror 
 
DUTY-DOING. l8l 
 
 with a spirit of daring and of faith that had 
 never yet been equaled among men. Affec- 
 tion and patriotism and religious zeal com- 
 bined to inspire Abram in his struggle for 
 victory, and caused him to expend his utter- 
 most energies in that more than life-and- 
 death conflict. And Abram was successful. 
 Such success as Abram's was sure to bring 
 despondency to the successful one; for there 
 was no unexpended courage and strength 
 left to him for personal sustaining, after a 
 conflict like that. Then it was, therefore, 
 that the Lord, who understands his children's 
 needs, and is ready to meet them accordingly, 
 "came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear 
 not, Abram : I am thy shield, and thy exceed- 
 ing great reward." 
 
 It might seem that Abram would have least 
 need at that time for a special assurance from 
 the Lord that he need have no fear; when, 
 single-handed, as it were, he had overthrown 
 the foremost chieftain of earth. But Abram 
 did need just such cheer as the Lord gave to 
 him; and when he expressed his despon- 
 
1 82 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 dency the Lord renewed his promise to him, 
 and gave him fresh assurance of the inviola- 
 bility of those promises. And Abram would 
 have been less of a man than he was, if he had 
 not been subject to such despondency as this 
 through exhaustion from his well-doing. 
 
 It was much the same with the prophet 
 Elijah as with Abram. It was when Elijah 
 had poured out all the energies of his being 
 in his literally single-handed but successful 
 combat with the four hundred and fifty priests 
 of Baal, backed as they were by the moral 
 support of the entire kingdom of Israel, that 
 Elijah fled into the desert in his exhaustion, 
 and, throwing himself under a bush of broom, 
 gave way to his despondency with the request 
 to the Lord that his now hopeless life-strug- 
 gle might be mercifully ended. Nor did the 
 Lord judge harshly his servant's despondency 
 on that occasion ; on the contrary, the Lord 
 sent an angel to speak words of loving sym- 
 pathy to Elijah, and to prepare for the weaiy 
 man the material sustenance which he needed. 
 He who condemns the despondency of Eli- 
 
DUTY-DOING. 1 83 
 
 jah after such a struggle as Elijah had been 
 called to, knows nothing of the true nature 
 of humanity, in the exhausting power of the 
 highest well-doing; for no man could have 
 so utterly given himself to a contest like that, 
 and yet have retained strength enough to 
 keep himself up after his work was done. 
 
 It is not that Elijah was a great man in 
 spite of this weakness, and that Elijah's well- 
 doing is to be admired while his failure to 
 continue fearlessly courageous calls for ex- 
 cusing pity; but it is that Elijah showed his 
 greatness in this exhibit of weakness, and 
 that Elijah is to be admired for so coura- 
 geously expending all his energies in the 
 cause he loved, that he had not enough left 
 to keep himself from crying like an exhausted 
 child. And so it is with every truest and 
 noblest well-doer. If he does his best in a 
 struggle that calls for all his energies, ex- 
 haustion and depression, and even despon- 
 dency, are inevitable — for a season. 
 
 Nor is it only in great crisis-conflicts that 
 men expend their energies exhaustingly. All 
 
1 84 D UTY-KNO WING AND 
 
 outlay of mind or of heart is expensive, and 
 tends to exhaustion. Hearty teaching costs 
 strength. Loving sympathy costs strength. 
 Help and cheer cannot be given to a person 
 in need except at a cost of personal strength 
 to the giver. Every kindly word or look 
 which comes from the heart, is an outlay of 
 the heart. And he who continues to give 
 from the heart, hour after hour and day after 
 day, is liable to exhaustion, and is liable to 
 that despondency which is a result of ex- 
 haustion. 
 
 The man who does most for others, and 
 who does it most effectively, in the line 
 of loving sympathy and of loving helpful- 
 ness, by the outlay of his personality, in his 
 ordinary life-work, is the man who is most 
 likely to suffer from despondency through 
 his personal exhaustion from well-doing. 
 Only he who really does not expend enough 
 of himself to give added courage and added 
 cheer to another by that expenditure, is free 
 from all danger of despondency through his 
 exhausting expenditure of self. 
 
DUTY-DOING. 1 85 
 
 He who is most successful in the unfailing 
 ministry of loving helpfulness to others, has 
 greatest need of sympathy and cheer from 
 others, in order to his rescue from, the de- 
 spondency which his exhausting outlay of self 
 is sure to bring to him. Yet he is the man 
 who, as a rule, is least likely to be deemed 
 in need of sympathy and cheer from others. 
 The student who has exhausted himself in 
 his unselfish struggle for the success of his 
 college, in the intercollegiate football game, 
 is sure to be cared for tenderly by his fellow- 
 students when that game is over. They have 
 no thought that because he has expended his 
 strength for them so freely, therefore he has 
 strength in abundance remaining for himself. 
 They know that he now needs their helpful 
 ministry, and they give it to him gladly. 
 
 The brave swimmer who has spent all his 
 vital force in the successful effort to save his 
 drowning companion, is taken in hand, as he 
 . falls exhausted on the shore, as though he 
 were the rescued one rather than the rescuer; 
 and there is no lack of loving endeavors to 
 
1 86 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 bring him back to strength again. An angel 
 comes from heaven to speak cheer to the de- 
 sponding prophet, whose strength has been 
 spent in the conflict on Carmel. And the 
 Lord himself brings words and signs of help 
 to the despondent patriarch after his exhaust- 
 ing struggle with Chedorlaomer. But to many 
 a loving preacher, or teacher, or neighbor, or 
 friend, whose vital force has all gone out in 
 helpful ministries of counsel, or of inspira- 
 tion, or of sympathy, or of affection, no word 
 of special cheer is spoken in his despondency; 
 because, forsooth, he has seemed to give cheer 
 so ceaselessly as to have it in a never-failing 
 supply. And so there are those who lie down 
 in a measure of despondency, night after 
 night, because of their personal exhaustion 
 from well-doing; while they are looked upon 
 by those who are familiar with their life-work 
 as exceptionally free from discouragement, 
 and as being never in need of loving help 
 from their fellows. 
 
 Rescue from despondency cannot come to 
 the truest well-doer through any sense of sat- 
 
DUTY-DOING. 1 87 
 
 isfaction with the results of his well-doing; 
 for no devoted well-doer ever attains to his 
 ideal of well-doing. And, indeed, the larger 
 a well-doer's achievement in the line of his 
 most earnest endeavor, the more extensive is 
 his outlook of desirable well-doing as yet 
 unattained, if not unattainable, by him. There- 
 fore it is that a deepened sense of his failure 
 to do all that he would have liked to do in 
 the line of his well-doing combines with the 
 well-doer's exhaustion from his measurable 
 well-doing, to cause him despondency when 
 his more active efforts at well-doing are at 
 an end for another day. As a rule, he who 
 does most and does best in the line of loving 
 endeavor for others suffers most from that 
 despondency which follows the expenditure 
 of self in behalf of others. 
 
 No well-doer is beyond the need of the 
 helpful ministry of your words of kindly 
 cheer. The ,man whom you look upon as 
 always capable of helping others, may be 
 exhausting himself to the verge of despon- 
 dency by his loving outlay of himself in such 
 
1 88 D UTY-KNO WING, 
 
 endeavor; and what you can say to him by 
 way of approval and of encouragement may 
 be the one thing needful, in the providence 
 of God, for his rescue from despondency, and 
 for his refreshing of soul in fitness for a new 
 series of loving efforts for his fellows. 
 
XIX. 
 
 RESTING BETWEEN HEART-BEATS. 
 
 If there be one symbol above another of 
 tireless activity in living service, it is the 
 throbbing human heart. The heart-throb is 
 the first token of a new existence ; it is the 
 last sign of remaining life when even the 
 very breath has ceased to come and go. By 
 day and by night, whether sleeping or wak- 
 ing, in all the years from birth to death, the 
 heart keeps on in its life-supplying toil ; and 
 even the staying of its pulsations for a single 
 second gives a start, as if it were the sum- 
 mons of death itself, to him who feels the 
 strange sensation within his own breast, or 
 to him who watches with love-strained ear 
 the signs of safety and of peril to an endan- 
 gered dear one. 
 
 Rest to the beating heart is popularly reck- 
 oned only another name for death ; yet rest 
 
 189 
 
1 90 D UTY-KNO WING A ND 
 
 is essential to the heart, — because the heart 
 is human, and must have rest. Hence it is 
 that the tireless human heart seeks and finds 
 its needful rest between its ceaseless throbs; 
 and herein the very heart itself brings its 
 lessons of the possibility and the value of 
 snatches of rest to every tireless and unceas- 
 ing worker in the sphere of life's uninter- 
 mitted duties. If one must be as constant at 
 his life-sustaining toil as the heart at its life- 
 supplying mission, he can at all events rest 
 between heart-beats; and such rest as that 
 is a practical reality, and not an extravagant 
 figure of speech. 
 
 Modern physiologists have shown that 
 after every heart-beat there is a distinct and 
 well-defined pause of the heart as if for rest, 
 and that the aggregate of these brief heart- 
 naps is fully eight hours — or more — out of 
 every twenty-four, — a reasonable amount of 
 sleep even for a busy worker. If the human 
 heart can keep at its important mission as 
 steadily and as continuously as it does, and 
 yet gain one-third of all the passing time for 
 
DUTY-DOING. 191 
 
 absolute and refreshing rest, who can say 
 that his toil is so unceasingly exacting that 
 he has no opportunity for needful rest with- 
 out a complete break from the responsibilities 
 of his position, and a prolonged intermission 
 of their activities? Who would claim, in- 
 deed, that the heart itself would wear better, 
 and do its work longer, if it were to take its 
 resting time in a continuous eight hours of 
 every day, or a continuous four months of 
 every year? What ground is there, in fact, 
 for supposing that the rest which comes to 
 the heart between heart-beats is not the best 
 and truest rest that the best and truest hearts 
 could ask for? 
 
 Rest is essential to efficient service in any 
 and every sphere; but continuous and pro- 
 longed rest is not the order of repose from 
 action in the higher spheres of nature's 
 working. It is the earth-clinging reptile, 
 and not the sun-seeking king of birds, that 
 will sleep for months together in a state that 
 is little better than death itself It is a sign 
 of cold blood, rather than of hot, when a 
 
192 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 mammal must hibernate for half a year. In 
 a land where the night is six months long, 
 after a six months' day, there is no high 
 achievement of genius possible, in the season 
 of sleeping or of waking. It is the senseless 
 clod of the field that must lie fallow for an 
 entire year at a time, in order to be capable 
 of its best productiveness at other times. 
 No such necessity is laid on the throbbing 
 heart or the busy brain. And that man 
 keeps himself at his lowest plane of possi- 
 ble efficiency who seeks his needful rest after 
 the pattern of the corn-field, of the tortoise, 
 or of the arctic bear, instead of after the 
 pattern of the tireless symbol and center of 
 personal human life. He has risen highest 
 in the scale of being who is able to rest 
 efficiently between his heart-beats. 
 
 There is always a loss of power to those 
 persons who can obtain rest only by a pro- 
 longed season of intermission from their 
 ordinary activities of body or of mind. 
 There is always a gain of power to those 
 persons who can snatch rest in the quickly 
 
DUTY-DOING, 1 93 
 
 passing seconds which intervene between 
 their successive duties of action. 
 
 A mother who can never sleep refreshingly 
 unless she can have an unbroken night of 
 rest bears no comparison, in the power of a 
 mother's ministry, with one who can catch 
 little naps in the momentary intervals of her 
 sick baby's wakeful worrying. A physician 
 who can utilize in sleep every break, for how- 
 ever brief a season, in the period of his watch- 
 ing over an endangered patient, or between 
 the successive calls upon him by those who 
 come to him for counsel, has possibilities of 
 endurance beyond those attaching to one 
 who can sleep only in his own bed, and con- 
 tinuously for hours. On an army's night 
 march, the soldier who would drop himself 
 on the ground, and have a few minutes' 
 sleep whenever the column was halted be- 
 cause of some obstruction to its advance, 
 would find himself fresh and strong when 
 the morning came ; while the soldier by his 
 side who would make no attempt at sleep 
 until he could have several consecutive hours 
 13 
 
194 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 for sleeping would be unfitted for his new 
 day's duties, and would even gain less from 
 his unduly postponed sleep when at last it 
 came to him in its order. 
 
 It was said of Napoleon that he had the 
 power of dropping asleep at any time and in 
 any place without a moment's delay, and of 
 gaining rest in a few seconds of snatched 
 sleep when he was unable to get more. 
 This was in itself one element of Napoleon's 
 pre-eminence, and the man who more nearly 
 approaches the high plane of Napoleon's pos- 
 sibility of intellectual achievement is almost 
 always the man who can thus, as it were, gain 
 his rest between heart-beats. 
 
 You never saw a man of exceptional admin- 
 istrative ability who had not the power of 
 turning absolutely away from the chief work 
 of his life at a moment's notice, in order to 
 give attention to some other matter, — either 
 of work or of recreation, — and so of resting 
 between heart-beats. The man who cannot 
 rest in this way is probably, at the best, a 
 man of inferior ability; and, on the other 
 
DUTY-DOING. 1 95 
 
 hand, the work he does is not so good as 
 the work he might do. 
 
 Many a man feels that unless he can have 
 a long vacation every year he cannot have a 
 reasonable rest. Rest between heart-beats 
 is no rest, in his estimation. Rest in the 
 intervals of his ordinary work day by day 
 is of no account, as he views it. A rest for 
 eight hours of every twenty-four in solid 
 sleep, or of one day in every seven in an 
 intermission of his ordinary business life, is 
 not deemed by him the rest which his nature 
 calls for. 
 
 Unless his work is turned away from for 
 a prolonged period, so that his heart and his 
 mind and his hand may be wholly free from 
 responsibility, both for the present and for 
 the immediate future, such a man counts 
 himself as deprived of that refreshing and 
 revivifying rest which, to his mind, is as 
 essential to his largest efficiency as is a six 
 month's night to an intelligent Eskimo, or 
 to an able-bodied tortoise. That such a man 
 needs a vacation is not to be rashly ques- 
 
1 96 D UTY-KNO WING AND 
 
 tioned; but that his need is the necessary- 
 need of a man of the higher grade of intel- 
 lectual and moral attainment in his normal 
 condition, is not to be admitted without a 
 question. 
 
 Prolonged work, without the constant 
 relief of due rest between heart-beats, may, 
 indeed, bring the necessity of prolonged rest, 
 with a corresponding intermission of normal 
 heart action. But, if the proper rest were 
 taken between heart-beats, there would be 
 no need of any such abnormal suspension 
 of life -supplying and life -diffusing heart- 
 activities. If a man needs a vacation for 
 months at a time, it is because he has not 
 rightly improved his privilege of resting 
 between heart -beats. He has failed to 
 pause after one heart-beat before attempting 
 another. He has not fully let go of one 
 absorbing thought or duty when, for a mo- 
 ment, he must lay hold of a different one. 
 He has not slept in the- hours of nightly 
 sleep, or recreated in the hours of daily 
 recreation. He has overtaxed his heart by 
 
DUTY-DOING. 1 97 
 
 refusing it due rest in its intervals of pulsa- 
 tion, until now that overstrained heart can 
 regain its vigor only through a season of 
 enforced and unnatural inaction; the un- 
 called-for excess on the one hand being a 
 cause of the called-for excess on the other. 
 Prolonged vacations are a natural conse- 
 quence of an unnatural use of one's vital 
 powers — where, indeed, a prolonged vaca- 
 tion is in any sense a necessity to an able- 
 bodied man or woman. 
 
 Those persons who obtain their due rest 
 between heart-beats can use their hearts at 
 their ordinary occupation, waking and sleep- 
 ing, twelve months in every year. They need 
 no annual vacation. Those persons, on the 
 other hand, who really must have a vacation, 
 are persons who have, for some reason, failed 
 to obtain a fair amount of rest between 
 heart-beats. Accordingly, they are necessi- 
 tated to live on with their invalid lives, esti- 
 vating in mental inaction, as the tortoise and 
 the bear hibernate in physical torpidity. But 
 such persons, one and all, ought to know 
 
1 98 D UTY-KNO WING. 
 
 that in their twofold excess they can never 
 hope to accomplish as much good work, or 
 to do their best work as well, as if they were 
 to keep their hearts steadily in action all the 
 year through, and were to take their rest 
 between heart-beats. 
 
XX. 
 
 THE END IS NOT YET 
 
 "Oh dear!" said a tired little fellow, weary 
 with his day's play, and yet not relishing the 
 thought of making ready for a night's rest. 
 "Oh dear! I wish it was night, and I was 
 undressed and in bed, and it was morning, 
 and I was up and dressed again." There 
 was a good deal of human nature in that 
 wish. A longing for the end of our present 
 experiences and occupations is well-nigh 
 universal among men. It is not always 
 that what we are doing, or what we are 
 passing through, is in itself distasteful to 
 us; but our desire is to have done with 
 this, in the expectation or the hope of some- 
 thing better beyond. There is an impatience 
 of the hindrances and delays in our prog- 
 ress toward the highest attainment. There 
 
 is a fever of unrest which quickens our blood 
 
 199 
 
200 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 in the pursuit of that which is still before 
 us, and which we hope will be an improve- 
 ment upon the present. 
 
 The child longs for the end of his tired 
 feeling; then he longs for the end of his 
 resting time. The school-boy longs for the 
 end of the term, that vacation may be here; 
 then perhaps he longs for vacation to be 
 over, that he may meet the boys again. The 
 college student longs for the end of his four 
 years' course. The professional man longs 
 for the end of each case he has in hand, or 
 of each special task to which he is sum- 
 moned. The tourist who starts on a journey 
 of health or pleasure longs for the end of its 
 each separate stage, until he finds himself 
 longing to be back at home once more. He 
 wants to see the end of this day's travel, or 
 of this stretch of road, or of this sweep of 
 the river or coast, as he journeys. 
 
 So with us all, in our life-course. It is the 
 end of this game we are playing, of this 
 piece of handiwork we are doing, of this 
 book or sermon or editorial we are writing, 
 
DUTY-DOING. 201 
 
 of this criminal trial or this congress of na- 
 tions we are watching, — that we are most 
 interested in, and that we most long to see. 
 What shall the end be? When shall be the 
 end? These are the questions which press 
 upon us continually, even though the thing 
 which we are doing is in itself delightful, 
 and the coming of its end will impose a new 
 duty upon us which may be less enjoyable, 
 and which will surely bring us nearer to the 
 end of all the pleasures of earth. 
 
 But over against this restless longing of 
 the human heart for the end of that which 
 is passing, there is set the truth that "the 
 end is not yet." There is continual disap- 
 pointment to those who look for the end 
 of all which keeps them from the attain- 
 ment of their ideal, and from the satisfaction 
 and repose which are supposed to follow 
 that which now hinders and disturbs the 
 impatient soul. The end of the child's tired 
 feelings has not come with a night's sound 
 sleep. He is to be perhaps more tired the 
 next day than before. Vacation does not 
 
202 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 end the need of study. The accomplishing 
 of one professional task does not end the 
 calls to repeated similar effort. No one 
 stage of a journey is the end of all ner- 
 vous anxiety to reach what is beyond. When 
 that which was looked forward to with such 
 longing, as the sure end of want arrd worry 
 and distress, has fairly come, it is found that 
 there is something still to disturb and annoy; 
 something still to demand toil and striving; 
 something still to be sought as the great ob- 
 ject of life's ambition, "The end is not. yet" 
 
 Our Lord emphasized this truth in its 
 application to his second advent, and to the 
 day of final judgment, when, "as he sat on 
 the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto 
 him privately, saying, Tell us when shall 
 these things be? And what shall be the 
 sign of thy coming, and of the end of the 
 world?" Jesus warned his followers not to 
 be deceived by the claims of false Christs, 
 nor yet by wars and rumors of wars, by 
 nation rising against nation, and by the mul- 
 tiplying of famines and pestilences and earth- 
 
DUTY-DOING. 203 
 
 quakes : " for these things must needs come 
 to pass ; but the end is not yet." And as it 
 shall be concerning these greatest of events, 
 so it is concerning all that precedes them 
 in the life of the Christian disciple. "The 
 end is not yet," even when it seems already 
 at hand. 
 
 Matthew Arnold gives a graphic and force- 
 ful illustration of this truth out of the history 
 of the eleventh-century Crusades, when whole 
 families of people — men, women, and chil- 
 dren — were swept into the long marches 
 toward the Holy Land, by the universal 
 torrent of enthusiasm. "Long before Asia 
 was reached, long before Europe was half 
 traversed, the little children in that traveling 
 multitude began to fancy, with a natural im- 
 patience, that their journey must surely be 
 drawing to an end; and every evening as 
 they came in sight of some town which was 
 the destination of that day's march, they 
 cried out eagerly to those who were with 
 them, 'Is this Jerusalem?' No, poor chil- 
 dren, not this town, nor the next, nor yet 
 
204 D UTY-KNO WING A ND 
 
 the next, is Jerusalem. Jerusalem is far 
 off, and it needs time, and strength, and 
 much endurance, to reach it. Seas and 
 mountains, labor and peril, hunger and 
 thirst, disease and death, are between Jeru- 
 salem and you." 
 
 And that longing of the children for their 
 journey's end in the Holy City of their seek- 
 ing is the longing of every human heart in 
 the toilsome days of life's pilgrimage. Chil- 
 dren of every age cry out, as they struggle 
 onward : 
 
 "O Mother dear, Jerusalem ! 
 When shall I come to thee ? 
 When shall my sorrows have an end — 
 Thy joys when shall I see ? 
 
 And to each and all the answer comes back 
 unvaryingly, "The end is not yet." 
 
 A housekeeper's work is never quite done. 
 Toil all day as she may, the end is not yet. 
 A mother's training of her child cannot be 
 at an end while he is still a child. The work 
 of any great reform pressed never so vigor- 
 ously, must be persevered in long after it 
 
DUTY-DOING. 205 
 
 would seem that its assured end was near. 
 The struggle for self-control, for growth in 
 knowledge and grace, and for a mastery over 
 all external temptations, is not to be found 
 complete so long as life lasts. Troubles which 
 we thought were laid forever — our blunder- 
 ings and failures, our misunderstandings with 
 a friend, the errors of a clerk or a business 
 partner — will repeat themselves again, and 
 yet many times more: their end is not yet 
 
 It is discouraging to find that ourselves, 
 our families, our classes, our congregations, 
 our communities, our country, our race, are 
 never so free from evil and danger that they 
 can safely be let alone; and that we can 
 say, " Thank God, all need of work for them 
 has ended!" This is discouraging, but it 
 is the unmistakable truth. There is always 
 something more to be done in the world. 
 Your work and mine — for ourselves and 
 for others — is never fully finished. Its end 
 is not yet. 
 
 For our encouragement, however, in the 
 thought that there is never an end to the 
 
206 DUTY-KNOWING AND 
 
 need of work for good, let us bear in mind 
 that there is never an end to the results and 
 influence of good work. The faith-filled 
 mother's wise training of her child does not 
 cease when he is a child no longer. When he 
 is a father, and when his children's children are 
 fathers, the end of her holy influence is not 
 yet — nor to the end of time. The godly 
 pastor's power over the people to whom he 
 ministers in fidelity, and over their successors 
 in that field, is never at an end. Although 
 new battles for reform must be fought un- 
 ceasingly, the victory of the earlier battles 
 will be manifest in never-ending and far- 
 reaching results for that reform. 
 
 Thus in little things as in larger. We 
 preach a sermon, or write a paragraph, or 
 teach a lesson, or speak a word of kindly 
 warning and loving counsel to-day; and we 
 are tempted to think that there \% an end of 
 it. Not so; the end is not yet. Its truth 
 reached some one with real impressiveness 
 as utterly new, or in fresh force, and it has 
 started a train of influences which shall have 
 
DUTY-DOING. 207 
 
 no end. This it is which is Longfellow's 
 thought: 
 
 " I shot an arrow into the air, 
 It fell to earth, I knew not where ; 
 For, so swiftly it flew, the sight 
 Could not follow it in its flight. 
 
 " I breathed a song into the air, 
 It fell to earth, I knew not where ; 
 For who has sight so keen and strong 
 That it can follow the flight of song ? 
 
 " Long, long afterward, in an oak 
 I found the arrow, still unbroke ; 
 And the song, from beginning to end, 
 I found again in the heart of a friend." 
 
 Nor has the mission of the arrow or of the 
 song ended even yet. 
 
 There is no end to the calls on you for 
 earnest work, for unselfish devotion to the 
 right, for struggles to gain a victory and to 
 attain to a lofty ideal. While life lasts, you 
 must toil and pray, and watch and endure. 
 "In your patience possess ye your souls/' 
 "Here is the patience and the faith of the 
 saints/' But, blessed be God, there is no end 
 
208 D UTY-KNO WING. 
 
 to the influence of a brave deed, a wise word, 
 or a moment's example of godly living and 
 holy being. " Ye are the light of the world." 
 If you will so shine your light before men 
 that they shall see your good works, and 
 be led thereby to glorify your Father which 
 is in heaven, — of the glorious results of your 
 living and doing, there shall never be an end. 
 
I 
 
 t.3