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Individual Problems
and Possibilities...
BY
William George Jordan
Author of "The Kingship of Self- Control"
New York Chicago Toronto
Fleming H. Revell Company
1898
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I. The Majesty of Calmness 3
II . Hurry, the Scourge of America 6
III. The Power of Personal Influence 9
IV . The Dignity of Self- Reliance 12
V . Failure as a Success 16
VI. Doing Our Best at All Times 20
VII . The Royal Road to Happiness 25
The Majesty of Calmness by William George Jordan (1 898)
The Majesty of Calmness
Calmness is the rarest quality in human life. It is the poise of a great nature, in harmony with
itself and its ideals. It is the moral atmosphere of a life self-centred, self-reliant, and self-
controlled. Calmness is singleness of purpose, absolute confidence, and conscious power, —
ready to be focused in an instant to meet any crisis.
The Sphinx is not a true type of calmness, — petrifaction is not calmness; it is death, the
silencing of all the energies; while no one lives his life more fully, more intensely and more
consciously than the man who is calm.
The Fatalist is not calm. He is the coward slave of his environment, hopelessly surrendering
to his present condition, recklessly indifferent to his future. He accepts his life as a
rudderless ship, drifting on the ocean of time. He has no compass, no chart, no known port
to which he is sailing. His self-confessed inferiority to all nature is shown in his existence of
constant surrender. It is not, — calmness.
The man -who is calm has his course in life clearly marked on his chart. His hand is ever on
the helm. Storm, fog, night, tempest, danger, hidden reefs, — he is ever prepared and ready
for them. He is made calm and serene by the realization that in these crises of his voyage he
needs a clear mind and a cool head; that he has naught to do but to do each day the best he
can by the light he has; that he will never flinch nor falter for a moment; that, though he
may have to tack and leave his course for a time, he will never drift, he will get back into the
true channel, he will keep ever headed toward his harbor. When he will reach it, how he will
reach it, matters not to him. He rests in calmness, knowing he has done his best. If his best
seem to be overthrown or overruled, then he must still bow his head, — in calmness. To no
man is permitted to know the future of his life, the finality. God commits to man ever only
new beginnings, new wisdom, and new days to use the best of his knowledge.
Calmness comes ever from within. It is the peace and restfulness of the depths of our nature.
The fury of storm and of wind agitate only the surface of the sea; they can penetrate only
two or three hundred feet, — below that is the calm, unruffled deep. To be ready for the
great crises of life we must learn serenity in our daily living. Calmness is the crown of self-
control.
When the worries and cares of the day fret you, and begin to wear upon you, and you chafe
under the friction, — be calm. Stop, rest for a moment, and let calmness and peace assert
themselves. If you let these irritating outside influences get the better of you, you are
The Majesty of Calmness hy William George Jordan (1 898)
confessing your inferiority to them, by permitting them to dominate you. Study the
disturbing elements, each by itself, bring all the will power of your nature to bear upon
them, and you will find that they will, one by one, melt into nothingness, like vapors fading
before the sun. The glow of calmness that will then pervade your mind, the tingling
sensation of an inflow of new strength, may be to you the beginning of the revelation of the
supreme calmness that is possible for you. Then, in some great hour of your life, when you
stand face to face with some awful trial, when the structure of your ambition and life-work
crumbles in a moment, you will be brave. You can then fold your arms calmly, look out
undismayed and undaunted upon the ashes of your hope, upon the wreck of what you have
faithfully built, and with brave heart and unfaltering voice you may say: "So let it be, — I will
build again."
When the tongue of malice and slander, the persecution of inferiority, tempts you for just a
moment to retaliate, when for an instant you forget yourself so far as to hunger for
revenge, — be calm. When the grey heron is pursued by its enemy, the eagle, it does not run
to escape; it remains calm, takes a dignified stand, and waits quietly, facing the enemy
unmoved. With the terrific force with which the eagle makes its attack, the boasted king of
birds is often impaled and run through on the quiet, lance-like bill of the heron. The means
that man takes to kill another' character becomes suicide of his own.
No man in the -world ever attempted to wrong another -without being injured in return, —
someway, somehow, sometime. The only weapon of offence that Nature seems to recognize
is the boomerang. Nature keeps her books admirably; she puts down every item, she closes
all accounts finally, but she does not always balance them at the end of the month. To the
man who is calm, revenge is so far beneath him that he cannot reach it, — even by stooping.
When injured, he does not retaliate; he wraps around him the royal robes of Calmness, and
he goes quietly on his way.
When the hand of Death touches the one we hold dearest, paralyzes our energy, and eclipses
the sun of our life, the calmness that has been accumulating in long years becomes in a
moment our refuge, our reserve strength.
The most subtle of all temptations is the seeming success of the wicked. It requires moral
courage to see, without flinching, material prosperity coming to men who are dishonest; to
see politicians rise into prominence, power and wealth by trickery and corruption; to see
virtue in rags and vice in velvets; to see ignorance at a premium, and knowledge at a
discount. To the man who is really calm these puzzles of life do not appeal. He is living his
life as best he can; he is not worrying about the problems of justice, whose solution must be
left to Omniscience to solve.
The Majesty of Calmness by William George Jordan (1 898)
When man has developed the spirit of Calmness until it becomes so absolutely part of him
that his very presence radiates it, he has made great progress in life. Calmness cannot be
acquired of itself and by itself; it must come as the culmination of a series of virtues. What
the world needs and what individuals need is a higher standard of living, a great realizing
sense of the privilege and dignity of life, a higher and nobler conception of individuality.
With this great sense of calmness permeating an individual, man becomes able to retire
more into himself, away from the noise, the confusion and strife of the world, -which come
to his ears only as faint, far-off rumblings, or as the tumult of the life of a city heard only as a
buzzing hum by the man in a balloon.
The man who is calm does not selfishly isolate himself from the world, for he is intensely
interested in all that concerns the welfare of humanity. His calmness is but a Holy of Holies
into -which he can retirejrom the world to get strength to live in the world. He realizes that
the full glory of individuality, the crowning of his self-control is, — the majesty of calmness.
The Majesty of Calmness by William George Jordan (1 898)
II
Hurry, the Scourge of America
The first sermon in the world was preached at the Creation. It was a Divine protest against
Hurry. It was a Divine object lesson of perfect law, perfect plan, perfect order, perfect
method. Six days of work carefully planned, scheduled and completed -were followed by, —
rest. Whether we accept the story as literal or as figurative, as the account of successive days
or of ages comprising millions of years, matters little if we but learn the lesson.
Nature is very un-American. Nature never hurries. Every phase of her working shows plan,
calmness, reliability, and the absence of hurry. Hurry always implies lack of definite
method, confusion, impatience of slow growth. The Tower of Babel, the world's first
skyscraper, was a failure because of hurry. The workers mistook their arrogant ambition for
inspiration. They had too many builders, — and no architect. They thought to make up the
lack of a head by a superfluity of hands. This is a characteristic of Hurry. It seeks ever to
make energy a substitute for a clearly defined plan, — the result is ever as hopeless as trying
to transform a hobby-horse into a real steed by brisk riding.
Hurry is a counterfeit of haste. Haste has an ideal, a distinct aim to be realized by the
quickest, direct methods. Haste has a single compass upon which it relies for direction and
in harmony -with -which its course is determined. Hurry says: "I must move faster. I will get
three compasses; I will have them different; I will be guided by all of them. One of them
will probably be right." Hurry never realizes that slow, careful foundation work is the
quickest in the end.
Hurry has ruined more Americans than has any other -word in the vocabulary of life. It is the
scourge of America; and is both a cause and a result of our high-pressure civilization. Hurry
adroitly assumes so many masquerades of disguise that its identity is not always recognized.
Hurry always pays the highest price for everything, and, usually the goods are not delivered.
In the race for wealth men often sacrifice time, energy, health, home, happiness and
honor, — everything that money cannot buy, the very things that money can never bring
back. Hurry is a phantom of paradoxes. Business men, in their desire to provide for the
future happiness of their family, often sacrifice the present happiness of wife and children on
the altar of Hurry. They forget that their place in the home should be something greater
than being merely "the man that pays the bills"; they expect consideration and
thoughtfulness that they are not giving.
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We hear too much of a wife' duties to a husband and too little of the other side of the
question. "The wife," they tell us, "should meet her husband with a smile and a kiss, should
tactfully watch his moods and be ever sweetness and sunshine." Why this continual swinging
of the censer of devotion to the man of business? Why should a woman have to look up with
timid glance at the face of her husband, to "size up his mood"? Has not her day, too, been
one of care, and responsibility, and watchfulness? Has not mother-love been working over
perplexing problems and worries of home and of the training of the children that wifely love
may make her seek to solve in secret? Is man, then, the weaker sex that he must be
pampered and treated as tenderly as a boil trying to keep from contact with the world?
In their hurry to attain some ambition, to gratify the dream of a life, men often throw
honor, truth, and generosity to the winds. Politicians dare to stand by and see a city
poisoned with foul water until they "see where they come in" on a water-works
appropriation. If it be necessary to poison an army, — that, too, is but an incident in the
hurry for -wealth.
This is the Age of the Hothouse. The element of natural growth is pushed to one side and
the hothouse and the force-pump are substituted. Nature looks on tolerantly as she says: "So
far you may go, but no farther, my foolish children."
The educational system of to-day is a monumental institution dedicated to Hurry. The
children are forced to go through a series of studies that sweep the circle of all human
-wisdom . They are given everything that the ambitious ignorance of the age can force into
their minds; they are taught everything but the essentials, — how to use their senses and how
to think. Their minds become congested by a great mass of undigested facts, and still the
cruel, barbarous forcing goes on. You watch it until it seems you cannot stand it a moment
longer, and you instinctively put out your hand and say: "Stop! This modern slaughter of the
Innocents must not go on!" Education smiles suavely, waves her hand complacently toward
her thousands of knowledge -prisons over the country, and says: "Who are you that dares
speak a word against our sacred, school system?" Education is in a hurry. Because she fails in
fifteen years to do what half the time should accomplish by better methods, she should not
be too boastful. Incompetence is not always a reason for pride. And they hurry the children
into a hundred textbooks, then into ill-health, then into the colleges, then into a diploma,
then into life, — with a dazed mind, untrained and unfitted for the real duties of living.
Hurry is the deathblow to calmness, to dignity, to poise. The old-time courtesy went out
-when the new-time hurry came in. Hurry is the father of dyspepsia. In the rush of our
national life, the bolting of food has become a national vice. The words "Quick Lunches"
might properly be placed on thousands of headstones in our cemeteries. Man forgets that he
is the only animal that dines; the others merely feed. Why does he abrogate his right to dine
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and go to the end of the line with the mere feeders? His self-respecting stomach rebels, and
expresses its indignation by indigestion. Then man has to go through life with a little bottle
of pepsin tablets in his vest-pocket. He is but another victim to this craze for speed. Hurry
means the breakdown of the nerves. It is the royal road to nervous prostration.
Everything that is great in life is the product of slow growth; the newer, and greater, and
higher, and nobler the work, the slower is its growth, the surer is its lasting success.
Mushrooms attain their full power in a night; oaks require decades. A fad lives its life in a
few weeks; a philosophy lives through generations and centuries. If you are sure you are
right, do not let the voice of the world, or of friends, or of family swerve you for a moment
from your purpose. Accept slow growth if it must be slow, and know the results must come,
as you would accept the long, lonely hours of the night, — with absolute assurance that the
heavy-leaded moments must bring the morning.
Let us as individuals banish the word "Hurry" from our lives. Let us care for nothing so
much that we would pay honor and self-respect as the price of hurrying it. Let us cultivate
calmness, restfulness, poise, sweetness, — doing our best, bearing all things as bravely as we
can; living our life undisturbed by the prosperity of the wicked or the malice of the envious.
Let us not be impatient, chafing at delay, fretting over failure, wearying over results, and
weakening under opposition. Let us ever turn our face toward the future with confidence
and trust, with the calmness of a life in harmony with itself, true to its ideals, and slowly and
constantly progressing toward their realization.
Let us see that cowardly word Hurry in all its most degenerating phases, let us see that it
ever kills truth, loyalty, thoroughness; and let us determine that, day by day, we will seek
more and more to substitute for it the calmness and repose of a true life, nobly lived.
The Majesty of Calmness by William George Jordan (1 898)
Ill
The Power of Personal Influence
The only responsibility that a man cannot evade in this life is the one he thinks of least, — his
personal influence. Man' conscious influence, when he is on dress-parade, when he is posing
to impress those around him, — is woefully small. But his unconscious influence, the silent,
subtle radiation of his personality, the effect of his words and acts, the trifles he never
considers, — is tremendous. Every moment of life he is changing to a degree the life of the
whole world. Every man has an atmosphere which is affecting every other. So silent and
unconsciously is this influence working, that man may forget that it exists.
All the forces of Nature, — heat, light, electricity and gravitation, — are silent and invisible.
We never see them; we only know that they exist by seeing the effects they produce. In all
Nature the wonders of the "seen" are dwarfed into insignificance -when compared -with the
majesty and glory of the "unseen". The great sun itself does not supply enough heat and light
to sustain animal and vegetable life on the earth. We are dependent for nearly half of our
light and heat upon the stars, and the greater part of this supply of life-giving energy comes
from invisible stars, millions of miles from the earth. In a thousand ways Nature constantly
seeks to lead men to a keener and deeper realization of the power and the -wonder of the
invisible .
Into the hands of every individual is given a marvellous power for good or for evil, — the
silent, unconscious, unseen influence of his life. This is simply the constant radiation of what
a man really is, not what he pretends to be. Every man, by his mere living, is radiating
sympathy, or sorrow, or morbidness, or cynicism, or happiness, or hope, or any of a
hundred other qualities. Life is a state of constant radiation and absorption; to exist is to
radiate; to exist is to be the recipient of radiations.
There are men and women whose presence seems to radiate sunshine, cheer and optimism.
You feel calmed and rested and restored in a moment to a new and stronger faith in
humanity. There are others who focus in an instant all your latent distrust, morbidness and
rebellion against life. Without knowing why, you chafe and fret in their presence. You lose
your bearings on life and its problems. Your moral compass is disturbed and unsatisfactory.
It is made untrue in an instant, as the magnetic needle of a ship is deflected when it passes
near great mountains of iron ore.
There are men -who float down the stream of life like icebergs, — cold, reserved,
unapproachable and self-contained. In their presence you involuntarily draw your wraps
closer around you, as you -wonder who left the door open. These refrigerated human beings
The Majesty of Calmness by William George Jordan (1 898) 9
have a most depressing influence on all those who fall under the spell of their radiated
chilliness. But there are other natures, warm, helpful, genial, who are like the Gulf Stream,
following their own course, flowing undaunted and undismayed in the ocean of colder
waters. Their presence brings warmth and life and the glow of sunshine, the joyous,
stimulating breath of spring. There are men who are like malarious swamps, — poisonous,
depressing and weakening by their very presence. They make heavy, oppressive and gloomy
the atmosphere of their own homes; the sound of the children's play is stilled, the ripples of
laughter are frozen by their presence. They go through life as if each day were a new big
funeral, and they were always chief mourners. There are other men who seem like the
ocean; they are constantly bracing, stimulating, giving new draughts of tonic life and
strength by their very presence.
There are men who are insincere in heart, and that insincerity is radiated by their presence.
They have a wondrous interest in your welfare, — when they need you. They put on a
"property" smile so suddenly, when it serves their purpose, that it seems the smile must be
connected with some electric button concealed in their clothes. Their voice has a simulated
cordiality that long training may have made almost natural. But they never play their part
absolutely true, the mask will slip down sometimes; their cleverness cannot teach their eyes
the look of sterling honesty; they may deceive some people, but they cannot deceive all.
There is a subtle power of revelation which makes us say: "Well, I cannot explain how it is,
but I know that man is not honest."
Man cannot escape for one moment from this radiation of his character, this constantly
weakening or strengthening of others. He cannot evade the responsibility by saying it is an
unconscious influence. He can select the qualities that he will permit to be radiated. He can
cultivate sweetness, calmness, trust, generosity, truth, justice, loyalty, nobility, — make
them vitally active in his character, — and by these qualities he will constantly affect the
world.
Discouragement often comes to honest souls trying to live the best they can, in the thought
that they are doing so little good in the world. Trifles unnoted by us may be links in the
chain of some great purpose. In 1797, William Godwin -wrote The Inquirer, a collection of
revolutionary essays on morals and politics. This book influenced Thomas Malthus to write
his Essay on Population, published in 1798. Malthus' book suggested to Charles Darwin a
point of view upon which he devoted many years of his life, resulting, in 18S9, in the
publication of The Origin of Species, — the most influential book of the nineteenth century,
a book that has revolutionized all science. These were but three links of influence extending
over sixty years. It might be possible to trace this genealogy of influence back from Godwin,
through generation and generation, to the -word or act of some shepherd in early Britain,
The Majesty of Calmness by William George Jordan (1 898) 1
watching his flock upon the hills, living his quiet life, and dying with the thought that he had
done nothing to help the world.
Men and women have duties to others, — and duties to themselves. In justice to ourselves
we should refuse to live in an atmosphere that keeps us from living our best. If the fault be in
us, we should master it. If it be the personal influence of others that, like a noxious vapor,
kills our best impulses, we should remove from that influence, — if we can possibly move
without forsaking duties. If it be wrong to move, then we should take strong doses of moral
quinine to counteract the malaria of influence. It is not what those around us do for us that
counts, — it is what they are to us. We carry our house -plants from one window to another
to give them the proper heat, light, air and moisture. Should we not be at least as careful of
ourselves?
To make our influence felt we must live our faith, we must practice what we believe. A
magnet does not attract iron, as iron. It must first convert the iron into another magnet
before it can attract it. It is useless for a parent to try to teach gentleness to her children
when she herself is cross and irritable. The child -who is told to be truthful and -who hears a
parent lie cleverly to escape some little social unpleasantness is not going to cling very
zealously to truth. The parent' words say "don't lie", the influence of the parent's life says
"do lie".
No man can ever isolate himself to evade this constant power of influence, as no single
corpuscle can rebel and escape from the general course of the blood. No individual is so
insignificant as to be without influence. The changes in our varying moods are all recorded
in the delicate barometers of the lives of others. We should ever let our influence filter
through human love and sympathy. We should not be merely an influence, — we should be
an inspiration. By our very presence we should be a tower of strength to the hungering
human souls around us.
The Majesty oj Calmness by William George Jordan (1 898) 1 1
IV
The Dignity of Self- Reliance
Self-confidence, without self-reliance, is as useless as a cooking recipe, — without food. Self-
confidence sees the possibilities of the individual; self-reliance realizes them. Self-confidence
sees the angel in the unhewn block of marble; self-reliance carves it out for himself.
The man -who is self-reliant says ever: "No one can realize my possibilities for me, but me;
no one can make me good or evil but myself." He works out his own salvation, — financially,
socially, mentally, physically, and morally. Life is an individual problem that man must solve
for himself. Nature accepts no vicarious sacrifice, no vicarious service. Nature never
recognizes a proxy vote. She has nothing to do with middle-men, — she deals only -with the
individual. Nature is constantly seeking to show man that he is his own best friend, or his
own -worst enemy. Nature gives man the option on -which he will be to himself.
All the athletic exercises in the -world are of no value to the individual unless he compel
those bars and dumb-bells to yield to him, in strength and muscle, the power for -which he,
himself, pays in time and effort. He can never develop his muscles by sending his valet to a
gymnasium .
The medicine -chests of the world are powerless, in all the united efforts, to help the
individual until he reach out and take for himself what is needed for his individual -weakness.
All the religions of the world are but speculations in morals, mere theories of salvation, until
the individual realize that he must save himself by relying on the law of truth, as he sees it,
and living his life in harmony -with it, as fully as he can. But religion is not a Pullman car,
with soft- cushioned seats, where he has but to pay for his ticket, — and some one else does
all the rest. In religion, as in all other great things, he is ever thrown back on his self-
reliance. He should accept all helps, but, — he must live his own life. He should not feel that
he is a mere passenger; he is the engineer, and the train is his life. We must rely on
ourselves, live our own lives, or we merely drift through existence, — losing all that is best,
all that is greatest, all that is divine.
All that others can do for us is to give us opportunity. We must ever be prepared for the
opportunity when it comes, and to go after it and find it when it does not come, or that
opportunity is to us, — nothing. Life is but a succession of opportunities. They are for good
or evil, — as we make them.
Many of the alchemists of old felt that they lacked but one element; if they could obtain that
one, they believed they could transmute the baser metals into pure gold. It is so in
The Majesty of Calmness by William George Jordan (1 898) 1 2
character. There are individuals with rare mental gifts, and delicate spiritual discernment
who fail utterly in life because they lack the one element, — self-reliance. This would unite
all their energies, and focus them into strength and power.
The man who is not self-reliant is weak, hesitating and doubting in all he does. He fears to
take a decisive step, because he dreads failure, because he is waiting for some one to advise
him or because he dare not act in accordance with his own best judgment. In his cowardice
and his conceit he sees all his non-success due to others. He is "not appreciated", "not
recognized", he is "kept down". He feels that in some subtle way "society is conspiring
against him". He grows almost vain as he thinks that no one has had such poverty, such
sorrow, such affliction, such failure as have come to him.
The man who is self-reliant seeks ever to discover and conquer the weakness within him that
keeps him from the attainment of what he holds dearest; he seeks -within himself the power
to battle against all outside influences. He realizes that all the greatest men in history, in
every phase of human effort, have been those who have had to fight against the odds of
sickness, suffering, sorrow. To him, defeat is no more than passing through a tunnel is to a
traveller, — he knows he must emerge again into the sunlight.
The nation that is strongest is the one that is most self-reliant, the one that contains within
its boundaries all that its people need. If, with its ports all blockaded it has not within itself
the necessities of life and the elements of its continual progress then, — it is weak, held by
the enemy, and it is but a question of time till it must surrender. Its independence is in
proportion to its self-reliance, to its power to sustain itself from within. What is true of
nations is true of individuals. The history of nations is but the biography of individuals
magnified, intensified, multiplied, and projected on the screen of the past. History is the
biography of a nation; biography is the history of an individual. So it must be that the
individual who is most strong in any trial, sorrow or need is he who can live from his
inherent strength, who needs no scaffolding of commonplace sympathy to uphold him. He
must ever be self-reliant.
The wealth and prosperity of ancient Rome, relying on her slaves to do the real work of the
nation, proved the nation's downfall. The constant dependence on the captives of war to do
the thousand details of life for them, killed self-reliance in the nation and in the individual.
Then, through weakened self-reliance and the increased opportunity for idle, luxurious ease
that came with it, Rome, a nation of fighters, became, — a nation of men more effeminate
than women. As we depend on others to do those things we should do for ourselves, our
self-reliance weakens and our powers and our control of them becomes continuously less.
The Majesty of Calmness by William George Jordan (1 898) 13
Man to be great must be self-reliant. Though he may not be so in all things, he must be self-
reliant in the one in -which he 'would be great. This self-reliance is not the self-sufficiency of
conceit. It is daring to stand alone. Be an oak, not a vine. Be ready to give support, but do
not crave it; do not be dependent on it. To develop your true self- reliance, you must see
from the very beginning that life is a battle you must fight for yourself, — you must be your
own soldier. You cannot buy a substitute, you cannot win a reprieve, you can never be
placed on the retired list. The retired list of life is, — death. The world is busy with its own
cares, sorrows and joys, and pays little heed to you. There is but one great password to
success, — self-reliance.
If you would learn to converse, put yourself into positions where you must speak. If you
would conquer your morbidness, mingle with the bright people around you, no matter how
difficult it may be. If you desire the power that some one else possesses, do not envy his
strength, and dissipate your energy by weakly wishing his force were yours. Emulate the
process by which it became his, depend on your self- reliance, pay the price for it, and equal
power may be yours. The individual must look upon himself as an investment, of untold
possibilities if rightly developed, — a mine whose resources can never be known but by
going down into it and bringing out what is hidden.
Man can develop his self-reliance by seeking constantly to surpass himself. We try too much
to surpass others. If we seek ever to surpass ourselves, we are moving on a uniform line of
progress, that gives a harmonious unifying to our growth in all its parts. Daniel Morrell, at
one time President of the Cambria Rail Works, that employed 7,000 men and made a rail
famed throughout the world, was asked the secret of the great success of the works. "We
have no secret," he said, "but this, — we always try to beat our last batch of rails."
Competition is good, but it has its danger side. There is a tendency to sacrifice real worth to
mere appearance, to have seeming rather than reality. But the true competition is the
competition of the individual with himself, — his present seeking to excel his past. This
means real growth from -within. Self-reliance develops it, and it develops self-reliance. Let
the individual feel thus as to his own progress and possibilities, and he can almost create his
life as he will. Let him never fall down in despair at dangers and sorrows at a distance; they
may be harmless, like Bunyan's stone lions, when he nears them.
The man who is self-reliant does not live in the shadow of some one else's greatness; he
thinks for himself, depends on himself, and acts for himself. In throwing the individual thus
back upon himself it is not shutting his eyes to the stimulus and light and new life that come
-with the warm pressure of the hand, the kindly -word and the sincere expressions of true
friendship. But true friendship is rare; its great value is in a crisis, — like a lifeboat. Many a
boasted friend has proved a leaking, worthless "lifeboat" when the storm of adversity might
make him useful. In these great crises of life, man is strong only as he is strong from within,
The Majesty of Calmness by William George Jordan (1 898) 14
and the more he depends on himself the stronger -will he become, and the more able will he
be to help others in the hour of their need. His very life will be a constant help and a
strength to others, as he becomes to them a living lesson of the dignity of self-reliance.
The Majesty of Calmness by William George Jordan (1 898) 1 5
Failure as a Success
It ofttimes requires heroic courage to face fruitless effort, to take up the broken strands of a
life-work, to look bravely toward the future, and proceed undaunted on our way. But what,
to our eyes, may seem hopeless failure is often but the dawning of a greater success. It may
contain in its debris the foundation material of a mighty purpose, or the revelation of new
and higher possibilities.
Some years ago, it was proposed to send logs from Canada to New York, by a new method.
The ingenious plan of Mr. Joggins was to bind great logs together by cables and iron girders
and to tow the cargo as a raft. When the novel craft neared New York and success seemed
assured, a terrible storm arose. In the fury of the tempest, the iron bands snapped like icicles
and the angry waters scattered the logs far and wide. The chief of the Hydrographic
Department at Washington heard of the failure of the experiment, and at once sent word to
shipmasters the world over, urging them to watch carefully for these logs which he
described: and to note the precise location of each in latitude and longitude and the time the
P
observation was made.
Hundreds of captains, sailing over the waters of the earth, noted the logs, in the Atlantic
Ocean, in the Mediterranean, in the South Seas, — for into all waters did these venturesome
ones travel. Hundreds of reports were made, covering a period of weeks and months. These
observations were then carefully collated, systematized and tabulated, and discoveries were
made as to the course of ocean currents that otherwise would have been impossible. The
loss of the Joggins raft was not a real failure, for it led to one of the great discoveries in
modern marine geography and navigation.
In our superior knowledge we are disposed to speak in a patronizing tone of the follies of the
alchemists of old. But their failure to transmute the baser metals into gold resulted in the
birth of chemistry. They did not succeed in -what they attempted, but they brought into
vogue the natural processes of sublimation, filtration, distillation, and crystallization; they
invented the alembic, the retort, the sand-bath, the water-bath and other valuable
instruments. To them is due the discovery of antimony, sulphuric ether and phosphorus, the
cupellation of gold and silver, the determining of the properties of saltpetre and its use in
gunpowder, and the discovery of the distillation of essential oils. This was the success of
failure, a wondrous process of Nature for the highest growth, — a mighty lesson of comfort,
strength, and encouragement if man -would only realize and accept it.
The Majesty of Calmness by William George Jordan (1 898) 1 6
Many of our failures sweep us to greater heights of success, than we ever hoped for in our
wildest dreams. Life is a successive unfolding of success from failure. In discovering America
Columbus failed absolutely. His ingenious reasoning and experiment led him to believe that
by sailing westward he would reach India. Every red man in America carries in his name
"Indian", the perpetuation of the memory of the failure of Columbus. The Genoese
navigator did not reach India; the cargo of "souvenirs" he took back to Spain to show to
Ferdinand and Isabella as proofs of his success, really attested his failure. But the discovery of
America was a greater success than was any finding of a "back-door" to India.
When David Livingstone had supplemented his theological education by a medical course,
he was ready to enter the missionary field. For over three years he had studied tirelessly,
with all energies concentrated on one aim, — to spread the gospel in China. The hour came
when he was ready to start out with noble enthusiasm for his chosen work, to consecrate
himself and his life to his unselfish ambition. Then -word came from China that the "opium
war" -would make it folly to attempt to enter the country. Disappointment and failure did
not long daunt him; he offered himself as missionary to Africa, — and he was accepted. His
glorious failure to reach China opened a whole continent to light and truth. His study
proved an ideal preparation for his labors as physician, explorer, teacher and evangel in the
wilds of Africa.
Business reverses and the failure of his partner threw upon the broad shoulders and the still
broader honor and honesty of Sir Walter Scott a burden of responsibility that forced him to
write. The failure spurred him to almost super-human effort. The masterpieces of Scotch
historic fiction that have thrilled, entertained and uplifted millions of his fellow-men are a
glorious monument on the field of a seeming failure.
When Millet, the painter of the "Angelus" -worked on his almost divine canvas, in which the
very air seems pulsing with the regenerating essence of spiritual reverence, he was painting
against time, he was antidoting sorrow, he was racing against death. His brush strokes, put
on in the early morning hours before going to his menial duties as a railway porter, in the
dusk like that perpetuated on his canvas, — meant strength, food and medicine for the dying
wife he adored. The art failure that cast him into the depths of poverty unified with
marvellous intensity all the finer elements of his nature. This rare spiritual unity, this
purging of all the dross of triviality as he passed through the furnace of poverty, trial, and
sorrow gave eloquence to his brush and enabled him to paint as never before, — as no
prosperity would have made possible.
Failure is often the turning-point, the pivot of circumstance that swings us to higher levels.
It may not be financial success, it may not be fame; it may be new draughts of spiritual,
The Majesty of Calmness by William George Jordan (1 898) 1 7
moral or mental inspiration that will change us for all the later years of our life. Life is not
really what comes to us, but what we get from it.
Whether man has had wealth or poverty, failure or success, counts for little when it is past.
There is but one question for him to answer, to face boldly and honestly as an individual
alone with his conscience and his destiny:
"How will I let that poverty or wealth affect me? If that trial or deprivation has left me
better, truer, nobler, then, — poverty has been riches, failure has been a success. If wealth
has come to me and has made me vain, arrogant, contemptuous, uncharitable, cynical,
closing from me all the tenderness of life, all the channels of higher development, of possible
good to my fellow-man, making me the mere custodian of a money-bag, then, — -wealth has
lied to me, it has been failure, not success; it has not been riches, it has been dark,
treacherous poverty that stole from me even Myself." All things become for us then what we
take from them.
Failure is one of God's educators. It is experience leading man to higher things; it is the
revelation of a way, a path hitherto unknown to us. The best men in the world, those who
have made the greatest real successes look back with serene happiness on their failures. The
turning of the face of Time shows all things in a wondrously illuminated and satisfying
perspective.
Many a man is thankful to-day that some petty success for which he once struggled, melted
into thin air as his hand sought to clutch it. Failure is often the rock-bottom foundation of
real success. If man, in a few instances of his life can say, "Those failures were the best things
in the world that could have happened to me," should he not face new failures with
undaunted courage and trust that the miraculous ministry of Nature may transform these
new stumbling-blocks into new stepping-stones?
Our highest hopes, are often destroyed to prepare us for better things. The failure of the
caterpillar is the birth of the butterfly; the passing of the bud is the becoming of the rose; the
death or destruction of the seed is the prelude to its resurrection as wheat. It is at night, in
the darkest hours, those preceding dawn, that plants grow best, that they most increase in
size. May this not be one of Nature's gentle showings to man of the times when he grows
best, of the darkness of failure that is evolving into the sunlight of success. Let us fear only
the failure of not living the right as we see it, leaving the results to the guardianship of the
Infinite .
If we think of any supreme moment of our lives, any great success, any one who is dear to
us, and then consider how we reached that moment, that success, that friend, we will be
The Majesty of Calmness by William George Jordan (1 898) 1 8
surprised and strengthened by the revelation. As we trace each one, back, step by step,
through the genealogy of circumstances, we will see how logical has been the course of our
joy and success, from sorrow and failure, and that what gives us most happiness to-day is
inextricably connected with what once caused us sorrow. Many of the rivers of our greatest
prosperity and growth have had their source and their trickling increase into volume among
the dark, gloomy recesses of our failure.
There is no honest and true work, carried along with constant and sincere purpose that ever
really fails. If it sometime seem to be wasted effort, it will prove to us a new lesson of
"how" to walk; the secret of our failures will prove to us the inspiration of possible
successes. Man living with the highest aims, ever as best he can, in continuous harmony with
them, is a success, no matter what statistics of failure a near-sighted and half-blind world of
critics and commentators may lay at his door.
High ideals, noble efforts will make seeming failures but trifles, they need not dishearten us;
they should prove sources of new strength. The rocky way may prove safer than the slippery
path of smoothness. Birds cannot fly best with the wind but against it; ships do not progress
in calm, when the sails flap idly against the unstrained masts.
The alchemy of Nature, superior to that of the Paracelsians, constantly transmutes the baser
metals of failure into the later pure gold of higher success, if the mind of the -worker be kept
true, constant and untiring in the service, and he have that sublime courage that defies fate
to its worst while he does his best.
The Majesty of Calmness by William George Jordan (1 898) 1 9
VI
Doing Our Best at All Times
Life is a wondrously complex problem for the individual, until, some day, in a moment of
illumination, he awakens to the great realization that he can make it simple, — never quite
simple, but always simpler. There are a thousand mysteries of right and wrong that have
baffled the wise men of the ages. There are depths in the great fundamental questions of the
human race that no plummet of philosophy has ever sounded. There are wild cries of honest
hunger for truth that seek to pierce the silence beyond the grave, but to them ever echo
back, — only a repetition of their unanswered cries.
To us all, comes, at times, the great note of questioning despair that darkens our horizon
and paralyzes our effort: "If there really be a God, if eternal justice really rule the world,"
we say, "why should life be as it is? Why do some men starve while others feast; why does
virtue often languish in the shadow while vice triumphs in the sunshine; why does failure so
often dog the footsteps of honest effort, while the success that comes from trickery and
dishonor is greeted with the world's applause? How is it that the loving father of one family
is taken by death, while the worthless incumbrance of another is spared? Why is there so
much unnecessary pain, sorrowing and suffering in the world, — -why, indeed, should there
be any?"
Neither philosophy nor religion can give any final satisfactory answer that is capable of
logical demonstration, of absolute proof. There is ever, even after the best explanations, a
residuum of the unexplained. We must then fall back in the eternal arms of faith, and be
wise enough to say, "I will not be disconcerted by these problems of life, I will not permit
them to plunge me into doubt, and to cloud my life with vagueness and uncertainty. Man
arrogates much to himself when he demands from the Infinite the full solution of all His
mysteries. I will found my life on the impregnable rock of a simple fundamental truth: —
'This glorious creation -with its millions of wondrous phenomena pulsing ever in harmony
with eternal law must have a Creator, that Creator must be omniscient and omnipotent. But
that Creator Himself cannot, in justice, demand of any creature more than the best that that
individual can give.' I will do each day, in every moment, the best I can by the light I have; I
will ever seek more light, more perfect illumination of truth, and ever live as best I can in
harmony with the truth as I see it. If failure come I will meet it bravely; if my pathway then
lie in the shadow of trial, sorrow and suffering, I shall have the restful peace and the calm
strength of one who has done his best, who can look back upon the past with no pang of
regret, and who has heroic courage in facing the results, whatever they be, knowing that he
could not make them different."
The Majesty of Calmness by William George Jordan (1 898) 20
Upon this life-plan, this foundation, man may erect any superstructure of religion or
philosophy that he conscientiously can erect; he should add to his equipment for living every
shred of strength and inspiration, moral, mental or spiritual that is in his power to secure.
This simple working faith is opposed to no creed, is a substitute for none; it is but a primary
belief, a citadel, a refuge where the individual can retire for strength when the battle of life
grows hard.
A mere theory of life, that remains but a theory, is about as useful to a man, as a gilt-edged
menu is to a starving sailor on a raft in mid- ocean. It is irritating but not stimulating. No
rule for higher living will help a man in the slightest, until he reach out and appropriate it for
himself, until he make it practical in his daily life, until that seed of theory in his mind
blossom into a thousand flowers of thought and word and act.
If a man honestly seeks to live his best at all times, that determination is visible in every
moment of his living, no trifle in his life can be too insignificant to reflect his principle of
living. The sun illuminates and beautifies a fallen leaf by the roadside as impartially as a
towering mountain peak in the Alps. Every drop of water in the ocean is an epitome of the
chemistry of the whole ocean; every drop is subject to precisely the same laws as dominate
the united infinity of billions of drops that make that miracle of Nature, men call the Sea. No
matter how humble the calling of the individual, how uninteresting and dull the round of his
duties, he should do his best. He should dignify what he is doing by the mind he puts into it,
he should vitalize what little he has of power or energy or ability or opportunity, in order to
prepare himself to be equal to higher privileges when they come. This will never lead man
to that weak content that is satisfied with whatever falls to his lot. It will rather fill his mind
with that divine discontent that cheerfully accepts the best, — merely as a temporary
substitute for something better.
The man who is seeking ever to do his best is the man who is keen, active, wide-awake, and
aggressive. He is ever watchful of himself in trifles; his standard is not "What will the world
say?" but "Is it worthy of me?"
Edwin Booth, one of the greatest actors on the American stage, would never permit himself
to assume an ungraceful attitude, even in his hours of privacy. In this simple thing, he ever
lived his best. On the stage every move was one of unconscious grace. Those of his company
who were conscious of their motions were the awkward ones, who were seeking in public
to undo or to conceal the carelessness of the gestures and motions of their private life. The
man who is slipshod and thoughtless in his daily speech, whose vocabulary is a collection of
anaemic commonplaces, whose repetitions of phrases and extravagance of interjections act
but as feeble disguises to his lack of ideas, will never be brilliant on an occasion when he
longs to outshine the stars. Living at one's best is constant preparation for instant use. It can
The Majesty of Calmness by William George Jordan (1 898) 21
never make one over-precise, self-conscious, affected, or priggish. Education, in its highest
sense, is conscious training of mind or body to act unconsciously. It is conscious formation of
mental habits, not mere acquisition of information.
One of the many ways in which the individual unwisely eclipses himself, is in his worship of
the fetish of luck. He feels that all others are lucky, and that whatever he attempts, fails. He
does not realize the untiring energy, the unremitting concentration, the heroic courage, the
sublime patience that is the secret of some men's success. Their "luck" was that they had
prepared themselves to be equal to their opportunity when it came and were awake to
recognize it and receive it. His own opportunity came and departed unnoted, it would not
waken him from his dreams of some untold -wealth that would fall into his lap. So he grows
discouraged and envies those whom he should emulate, and he bandages his arm and
chloroforms his energies, and performs his duties in a perfunctory way, or he passes through
life, just ever "sampling" lines of activity.
The honest, faithful struggler should always realize that failure is but an episode in a true
man's life, — never the whole story. It is never easy to meet, and no philosophy can make it
so, but the steadfast courage to master conditions, instead of complaining of them, will help
him on his way; it will ever enable him to get the best out of what he has. He never knows
the long series of vanquished failures that give solidity to some one else's success; he does
not realize the price that some rich man, the innocent football of political malcontents and
demagogues, has heroicly paid for wealth and position.
The man who has a pessimist's doubt of all things; who demands a certified guarantee of his
future; who ever fears his work will not be recognized or appreciated; or that after all, it is
really not worth while, will never live his best. He is dulling his capacity for real progress by
his hypnotic course of excuses for inactivity, instead of a strong tonic of reasons for action.
One of the most weakening elements in the individual make-up is the surrender to the
oncoming of years. Man's self-confidence dims and dies in the fear of age. "This new
thought," he says of some suggestion tending to higher development, "is good; it is what we
need. I am glad to have it for my children; I would have been happy to have had some such
help when I was at school, but it is too late for me. I am a man advanced in years."
This is but blind closing of life to wondrous possibilities. The knell of lost opportunity is
never tolled in this life. It is never too late to recognize truth and to live by it.
It requires only greater effort, closer attention, deeper consecration; but the impossible
does not exist for the man who is self-confident and is -willing to pay the price in time and
struggle for his success or development. Later in life, the assessments are heavier in
The Majesty oj Calmness by William George Jordan (1 898) 22
progress, as in life insurance, but that matters not to that mighty self-confidence that will not
grow old -while knowledge can keep it young.
Socrates, when his hair whitened with the snow of age, learned to play on instruments of
music. Cato, at fourscore, began his study of Greek, and the same age saw Plutarch
beginning, with the enthusiasm of a boy, his first lessons in Latin. The Character of Man,
Theophrastus' greatest work, was begun on his ninetieth birthday. Chaucer's Canterbury
Tales was the work of the poet's declining years. Ronsard, the father of French poetry,
whose sonnets even translation cannot destroy, did not develop his poetic faculty until
nearly fifty. Benjamin Franklin at this age had just taken his really first steps of importance in
philosophic pursuits. Arnauld, the theologian and sage, translated Josephus in his eightieth
year. Winckelmann, one of the most famous writers on classic antiquities, was the son of a
shoemaker, and lived in obscurity and ignorance until the prime of life. Hobbes, the English
philosopher, published his version of the Odyssey in his eighty- seventh year, and his Iliad
one year later. Chevreul, the great French scientist, whose untiring labors in the realm of
color have so enriched the world, was busy, keen and active when Death called him, at the
age of 103.
These men did not fear age; these few names from the great muster-roll of the famous ones
who defied the years, should be voices of hope and heartening to every individual whose
courage and confidence is weak. The path of truth, higher living, truer development in
every phase of life, is never shut from the individual, — until he closes it himself. Let man
feel this, believe it and make this faith a real and living factor in his life and there are no
limits to his progress. He has but to live his best at all times, and rest calm and untroubled
no matter what results come to his efforts. The constant looking backward to what might
have been, instead of forward to what may be, is a great weakener of self-confidence. This
worry for the old past, this wasted energy, for that which no power in the world can
restore, ever lessens the individual's faith in himself, weakens his efforts to develop himself
for the future to the perfection of his possibilities.
Nature in her beautiful love and tenderness, says to man, weakened and worn and weary
with the struggle, "Do in the best way you can the trifle that is under your hand at this
moment; do it in the best spirit of preparation for the future your thought suggests; bring all
the light of knowledge from all the past to aid you. Do this and you have done your best.
The past is forever closed to you. It is closed forever to you. No worry, no struggle, no
suffering, no agony of despair can alter it. It is as much beyond your power as if it were a
million years of eternity behind you. Turn all that past, with its sad hours, weakness and sin,
its wasted opportunities as light; in confidence and hope, upon the future. Turn it all in
fuller truth and light so as to make each trifle of this present a new past it will be joy to look
back to; each trifle a grander, nobler, and more perfect preparation for the future. The
The Majesty of Calmness by William George Jordan (1 898) 23
present and the future you can make from it, is yours; the past has gone back, with all its
messages, all its history, all its records to the God who loaned you the golden moments to
use in obedience to His law."
The Majesty of Calmness by William George Jordan (1 898) 24
VII
The Royal Road to Happiness
"During my -whole life I have not had twenty-four hours of happiness." So said Prince
Bismarck, one of the greatest statesmen of the nineteenth century. Eighty-three years of
wealth, fame, honors, power, influence, prosperity and triumph, — years when he held an
empire in his fingers, — but not one day of happiness!
Happiness is the greatest paradox in Nature. It can grow in any soil, live under any
conditions. It defies environment. It comes from within; it is the revelation of the depths of
the inner life as light and heat proclaim the sun from which they radiate. Happiness consists
not of having, but of being; not of possessing, but of enjoying. It is the warm glow of a heart
at peace with itself. A martyr at the stake may have happiness that a king on his throne might
envy. Man is the creator of his own happiness; it is the aroma of a life lived in harmony with
high ideals. For what a man has, he may be dependent on others; what he is, rests with him
alone. What he obtains in life is but acquisition; what he stains, is growth. Happiness is the
soul's joy in the possession of the intangible. Absolute, perfect, continuous happiness in life,
is impossible for the human. It would mean the consummation of attainments, the individual
consciousness of a perfectly fulfilled destiny. Happiness is paradoxic because it may coexist
with trial, sorrow and poverty. It is the gladness of the heart, — rising superior to all
conditions .
Happiness has a number of under-studies, — gratification, satisfaction, content, and
pleasure, — clever imitators that simulate its appearance rather than emulate its method.
Gratification is a harmony between our desires and our possessions. It is ever incomplete, it
is the thankful acceptance of part. It is a mental pleasure in the quality of what one receives,
an unsatisfiedness as to the quantity. It may be an element in happiness, but, in itself, — it is
not happiness.
Satisfaction is perfect identity of our desires and our possessions. It exists only so long as this
perfect union and unity can be preserved. But every realized ideal gives birth to new ideals,
every step in advance reveals large domains of the unattained; every feeding stimulates new
appetites, — then the desires and possessions are no longer identical, no longer equal; new
cravings call forth new activities, the equipoise is destroyed, and dissatisfaction reenters.
Man might possess everything tangible in the world and yet not be happy, for happiness is
the satisfying of the soul, not of the mind or the body. Dissatisfaction, in its highest sense, is
the keynote of all advance, the evidence of new aspirations, the guarantee of the progressive
revelation of new possibilities.
The Majesty of Calmness by William George Jordan (1 898) 25
Content is a greatly overrated virtue. It is a kind of diluted despair; it is the feeling with
which we continue to accept substitutes, without striving for the realities. Content makes
the trained individual swallow vinegar and try to smack his lips as if it were wine. Content
enables one to warm his hands at the fire of a past joy that exists only in memory. Content is
a mental and moral chloroform that deadens the activities of the individual to rise to higher
planes of life and growth. Man should never be contented with anything less than the best
efforts of his nature can possibly secure for him. Content makes the -world more
comfortable for the individual, but it is the death-knell of progress. Man should be content
with each step of progress merely as a station, discontented with it as a destination;
contented with it as a step; discontented with it as a finality. There are times when a man
should be content with what he has, but never with what he is.
But content is not happiness; neither is pleasure. Pleasure is temporary, happiness is
continuous; pleasure is a note, happiness is a symphony; pleasure may exist when conscience
utters protests; happiness, — never. Pleasure may have its dregs and its lees; but none can be
found in the cup of happiness.
Man is the only animal that can be really happy. To the rest of the creation belong only weak
imitations of the understudies. Happiness represents a peaceful attunement of a life with a
standard of living. It can never be made by the individual, by himself, for himself. It is one of
the incidental by-products of an unselfish life. No man can make his own happiness the one
object of his life and attain it, any more than he can jump on the far end of his shadow. If you
would hit the bull's-eye of happiness on the target of life, aim above it. Place other things
higher than your own happiness and it will surely come to you. You can buy pleasure, you
can acquire content, you can become satisfied, — but Nature never put real happiness on the
bargain-counter. It is the undetachable accompaniment of true living. It is calm and
peaceful; it never lives in an atmosphere of worry or of hopeless struggle.
The basis of happiness is the love of something outside self. Search every instance of
happiness in the world, and you will find, -when all the incidental features are eliminated,
there is always the constant, unchangeable element of love, — love of parent for child; love
of man and woman for each other; love of humanity in some form, or a great life work into
which the individual throws all his energies.
Happiness is the voice of optimism, of faith, of simple, steadfast love. No cynic or pessimist
can be really happy. A cynic is a man who is morally near-sighted, — and brags about it. He
sees the evil in his own heart, and thinks he sees the world. He lets a mote in his eye eclipse
the sun. An incurable cynic is an individual who should long for death, — for life cannot
bring him happiness, death might. The keynote of Bismarck's lack of happiness was his
profound distrust of human nature.
The Majesty of Calmness by William George Jordan (1 898) 26
There is a royal road to happiness; it lies in Consecration, Concentration, Conquest and
Conscience.
Consecration is dedicating the individual life to the service of others, to some noble mission,
to realizing some unselfish ideal. Life is not something to be lived through; it is something to
be lived up to. It is a privilege, not a penal servitude of so many decades on earth.
Consecration places the object of life above the mere acquisition of money, as a finality. The
man who is unselfish, kind, loving, tender, helpful, ready to lighten the burden of those
around him, to hearten the struggling ones, to forget himself sometimes in remembering
others, — is on the right road to happiness. Consecration is ever active, bold and aggressive,
fearing naught but possible disloyalty to high ideals.
Concentration makes the individual life simpler and deeper. It cuts away the shams and
pretences of modern living and limits life to its truest essentials. Worry, fear, useless
regret, — all the great wastes that sap mental, moral or physical energy must be sacrificed,
or the individual needlessly destroys half the possibilities of living. A great purpose in life,
something that unifies the strands and threads of each day's thinking, something that takes
the sting from the petty trials, sorrows, sufferings and blunders of life, is a great aid to
Concentration. Soldiers in battle may forget their -wounds, or even be unconscious of them,
in the inspiration of battling for what they believe is right. Concentration dignifies an
humble life; it makes a great life, — sublime. In morals it is a short-cut to simplicity. It leads
to right for right's sake, without thought of policy or of reward. It brings calm and rest to
the individual, — a serenity that is but the sunlight of happiness.
Conquest is the overcoming of an evil habit, the rising superior to opposition and attack, the
spiritual exaltation that comes from resisting the invasion of the grovelling material side of
life. Sometimes when you are worn and weak with the struggle; when it seems that justice is
a dream, that honesty and loyalty and truth count for nothing, that the devil is the only good
paymaster; when hope grows dim and flickers, then is the time -when you must tower in the
great sublime faith that Right must prevail, then must you throttle these imps of doubt and
despair, you must master yourself to master the world around you. This is Conquest; this is
what counts. Even a log can float with the current, it takes a man to fight sturdily against an
opposing tide that would sweep his craft out of its course. When the jealousies, the petty
intrigues and the meannesses and the misunderstandings in life assail you, — rise above them.
Be like a lighthouse that illumines and beautifies the snarling, swashing waves of the storm
that threaten it, that seek to undermine it and seek to wash over it. This is Conquest. When
the chance to win fame, wealth, success or the attainment of your heart's desire, by sacrifice
of honor or principle, comes to you and it does not affect you long enough even to seem a
The Majesty oj Calmness by William George Jordan (1 898) 27
temptation, you have been the victor. That too is Conquest. And Conquest is part of the
royal road to Happiness.
Conscience, as the mentor, the guide and compass of every act, leads ever to Happiness.
When the individual can stay alone with his conscience and get its approval, without using
force or specious logic, then he begins to know what real Happiness is. But the individual
must be careful that he is not appealing to a conscience perverted or deadened by the
wrongdoing and subsequent deafness of its owner. The man who is honestly seeking to live
his life in Consecration, Concentration and Conquest, living from day to day as best he can,
by the light he has, may rely explicitly on his Conscience. He can shut his ears to "what the
world says" and find in the approval of his own conscience the highest earthly tribune, — the
voice of the Infinite communing with the Individual.
Unhappiness is the hunger to get; Happiness is the hunger to give. True happiness must ever
have the tinge of sorrow outlived, the sense of pain softened by the mellowing years, the
chastening of loss that in the wondrous mystery of time transmutes our suffering into love
and sympathy with others.
If the individual should set out for a single day to give Happiness, to make life happier,
brighter and sweeter, not for himself, but for others, he would find a wondrous revelation
of what Happiness really is. The greatest of the world's heroes could not by any series of
acts of heroism do as much real good as any individual living his whole life in seeking, from
day to day, to make others happy.
Each day there should be fresh resolution, new strength, and renewed enthusiasm. "Just for
Today" might be the daily motto of thousands of societies throughout the country,
composed of members bound together to make the -world better through constant simple
acts of kindness, constant deeds of sweetness and love. And Happiness would come to them,
in its highest and best form, not because they would seek to absorb it, but, — because they
seek to radiate it.
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The Majesty of Calmness by William George Jordan (1 898) 28
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