The University of Hard Knocks Part 23

Go to Keokuk, Iowa, for your answer.

They have built a great concrete obstacle clear across the path of the river. It is many feet high, and many, many feet long. The river cannot go on south. Watch him. He rises higher than the obstacle and sweeps over it on south.

Over the great power dam at Keokuk sweeps the Mississippi. And then you see the struggle of overcoming the obstacle develops light and power to vitalize the valley. A hundred towns and cities radiate the light and power from the struggle. The great city of St. Louis, many miles away, throbs with the victory.

So that is why they spent the millions to build the obstacle--to get the light and the power. The light and the power were latent in the river, but it took the obstacle and the overcoming to develop it and make it useful.

That is exactly what happens when you and I overcome our obstacles. We develop our light and power. We are rivers of light and power, but it is all latent and does no good until we overcome obstacles as we go on south.

Obstacles are the power stations on our way south!

And where the most obstacles are, there you find the most power to be developed. So many of us do not understand that. We look southward and we see the obstacles in the road. "I am so unfortunate. I could do these great things, but alas! I have so many obstacles in the way."

Thank G.o.d! You are blessed of Providence. They do not waste the obstacles. The presence of the obstacles means that there is a lot of light and power in you to be developed. If you see no obstacles, you are confessing to blindness.

I hear people saying, "I hope the time may speedily come when I shall have no more obstacles to overcome!" When that time comes, ring up the hea.r.s.e, for you will be a "dead one."

Life is going on south, and overcoming the obstacles. Death is merely quitting.

The fact that we are not buried is no proof that we are alive. Go along the street in almost any town and see the dead ones. There they are decorating the hitching-racks and festooning the storeboxes. There they are blocking traffic at the postoffice and depot. There they are in the hotel warming the chairs and making the guests stand up. There they are--rows of retired farmers who have quit work and moved to town to block improvements and die. But they will never need anything more than burying.

For they are dead from the ears up. They have not thought a new thought the past month. Sometimes they sit and think, but generally they just sit. They have not gone south an inch the past year.

Usually the deadest loafer is married to the livest woman. Nature tries to maintain an equilibrium.

They block the wheels of progress and get in the way of the people trying to go on south. They say of the people trying to do things. "Aw, he's always tryin' to run things."

They do not join in to promote the churches and schools and big brother movements. They growl at the lyceum courses and chautauquas, because they "take money outa town." They do not take any of their money "outa town." Ringling and Barnum & Bailey get theirs.

I do not smile as I refer to the dead. I weep. I wish I could squirt some "pep" into them and start them on south.

But all this lecture has been discussing this, so I hurry on to the last glimpse of the book in the running brook.

Go on South From Principle

Here we come to the most wonderful and difficult thing in life. It is the supreme test of character. That is, Why go on south? Not for blessing nor cursing, not for popularity nor for selfish ends, not for anything outside, but for the happiness that comes from within.

The Mississippi blesses the valley every day as he goes on south and overcomes. But the valley does not bless the river in return. The valley throws its junk back upon the river. The valley pours its foul, muddy, poisonous streams back upon the Mississippi to defile him. The Mississippi makes St. Paul and Minneapolis about all the prosperity they have, gives them power to turn their mills. But the Twin Cities merely throw their waste back upon their benefactor.

The Mississippi does not resign. He does not tell a tale of woe. He does not say, "I am not appreciated. My genius is not understood. I am not going a step farther south. I am going right back to Lake Itasca."

No, he does not even go to live with his father-in-law.

He says, "Thank you. Every little helps, send it all along." Go a few miles below the Twin Cities and see how, by some mysterious alchemy of Nature, the Mississippi has taken over all the poison and the defilement, he has purified it and clarified it, and has made it a part of himself. And he is greater and farther south!

He fattens upon b.u.mps. Kick him, and you push him farther south. "Hand him a lemon," and he makes lemonade.

Civilization conspires to defeat the Mississippi. Chicago's drainage ca.n.a.l pollutes him. The flat, lazy Platte, three miles wide and three inches deep; the peevish, destructive Kaw, and all those streams that unite to form the treacherous, sinful, irresponsible lower Missouri; the big, muddy Ohio, the Arkansas, the Red, the black and the blue floods--all these pour into the Mississippi.

Day by day the Father of Waters goes on south, taking them over and purifying them and making them a part of himself. Nothing can discourage, divert nor defile him. No matter how poisonous he becomes, he goes a few miles on south and he is all pure again.

Wonderful the book in the running brook! We let our life stream become poisoned by bitter memories and bitter regrets. We carry along such a heart full of the injuries that other people have done us, that sometimes we are bank to bank full of poison and a menace to those around us. We say, "I can forgive, but I cannot forget."

Oh, forget it! Drop it all. Purify your life and go on south all sweet again. We forget what we ought to remember and remember what we ought to forget. We need schools of memory, but we need schools of forgettery, even more.

As you go on south and bless your valley, do you notice the valley does not bless you very much? Have you sadly noted that the people you help the most often are the least grateful in return?

Don't wait to be thanked. Hurry on to avoid the kick! Do good to others because that is the way to be happy, but do not wait for a receipt for your goodness; you will need a poultice every time you wait. I know, for I have waited!

We get so discouraged. We say, "I have gone far enough south." There is n.o.body who does not have that to meet. The preacher, the teacher, the editor, the man in office, the business man, the father and mother--every one who tries to carry on the work of the church, the school, the lyceum and chautauqua, the work that makes for a better community, gets discouraged at times.

We fail to see what we are doing or why we are doing it. Sometimes we sit down completely discouraged and say, "I'm done. I'm going to quit.

I have done my share. n.o.body appreciates what I do. Let somebody else do it awhile."

Stop! You are not saying that. The evil one is whispering that into your heart. His business is to stop you from going south. His most successful tool is discouragement, which is a wedge, and if he can get the sharp edge started into your thought, he is going to drive it deeper.

You do not go south and overcome your obstacles and bless the valley for praise or blame, for appreciation or lack of it. You do it to live.

You do it to remain a living river and not a stagnant, unhappy pond or swamp.

YOU ARE SAVING YOURSELF BY SAVING OTHERS. GO ON SOUTH!

Almost everybody is deceived. We work from mixed motives. We fool ourselves that we are working to do good, when as we do the good, if we are not praised or thanked for it, if people do not present us a medal or resolutions, we want to quit. That is why there are so many disappointed and disgruntled people in the world. They worked for outside thanks instead of inside thanks. They were trying to be personal saviours. They say this is an ungrateful world.

O, how easy it is to say these things, and how hard it is to do them!

Reaching the Gulf

But because the Mississippi does these things, one day the train I was riding stopped in Louisiana. We had come to a river so great science has not yet been able to put a bridge across it.

I watched them pile the steel train upon a ferry-boat. I watched the boat crossing a river more than a mile wide. Standing upon the ferry-boat, I could look down into the lordly river and then far north perhaps fifteen hundred miles to the little struggling streamlet starting southward thru the forests of Minnesota, there writing the first chapter of this wonderful book in the running brook.

I thank G.o.d that I had gone a little farther southward in my own life.

Father of Waters, you have fought a good fight. You are conquering gloriously. You bear upon your bosom the commerce of many nations. I know why. I saw you born, saw your struggles, saw you get in the right channel, saw you learn the lessons of your knocks, and saw that you never stopped going southward.

And may we read it into our own lives. May we get the vision of which way to go, and then keep on going south--on and on, overcoming, getting the lessons of the b.u.mps, the strength from the struggle and thus making it a part of ourselves, and thus growing greater.