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SECRETS
OF
SELF-MASTERY
Lowell Russell Ditzen, D.D., LL.D.

What makes one man or woman

successful in mastering life, while an-
other is beset with personal difficulties
and moral confusion? What are the
keys to self-discovery and exciting per-
sonal mastery? The secrets of self-com-
mand are all revealed in this wise and
powerful book.

Only in the mastery of ourselves, says

Dr. Ditzen, noted Presbyterian minis-
ter, can we hope to achieve in any T^
measure the outward mastery of life.
There are many related aspects of self-
mastery, and the crux of the whole
matter is a right relationship with what
we call God . . . "We shall not master
be, until we Master find."

Secrets Of Self-Masterv abounds

in inspirational messages from the ages
— from literature, philosophy, psychol-
ogy and religion.
Dr. Ditzen gives the reader concise
and constructive techniques for achiev-

ing self-mastery through the creative

(Continued on back flap)

CHRISTIAN HERALD'S
Family Bookshelf Selection
 Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2010

[Link]
SECRETS OF SELF-MASTERY
 Other Books by the Same Author
PERSONAL SECURITY THROUGH FAITH
YOU ARE NEVER ALONE
 secrets of
Self-Mastery
AN INSPIRATIONAL GUIDE
TO THE MASTERY OF LIFE

Lowell Russell Ditzen, D.D., LL.D.

PASTOR
THE REFORMED CHURCH OF BRONXVILLE
NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY, NEW YORK

 Copyright © 1958 by Henry Holt and Company

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce

this book or portions thereof in any form.

In Canada, George J. McLeod, Ltd.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 58-7639

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following publishers

and authors for granting permission to use excerpts in this vol-
ume.
"QuietIs What We Need" by Christopher Morley, Atlantic

Monthly, January, 1947

"Man-Test" in THE SHOES OF HAPPINESS AND OTHER
POEMS by Edwin Markham, Copyright 1915 by Edwin
Markham, Doubleday and Company, Inc.
"Deep Is the Hunger" by Howard Thurman, published by
Harper and Brothers
"Two Gods" by Sam Walter Foss in MASTERPIECES OF
RELIGIOUS VERSE, Harper and Brothers, 1948
RENASCENCE AND OTHER POEMS, Harper and Brothers,
Copyright c 1912, 1940 by Edna St. Vincent Millay
EACH IN HIS OWNTONGUE by H. W. Carruth, G. P.
Putnam's Sons, Copyright 1908, renewed 1936 by Katherine
M. Carruth

81864-0318

Printed in the United States of America

 To
Virginia Stuart Ditzen

Stuart and Deborah

This book by a wise and kindly man is a volume of unusual
helpfulness. It goes deeply into the basic problems of modern
individuals and comes up with answers that really answer.
Pleasant, literary quality is blended with satisfying prac-
ticality.

The book is directed to human need as all of us face it daily.

Dr. Ditzen's thoroughgoing scholarship and profound under-
standing are communicated in a charming and highly read-
able style.

SECRETS OF SELF-MASTERY can mean much to the

reader personally and is also an excellent tool for helping
other people.
Norman Vincent Peale
February, 1958
 CONTENTS
I. KEEPING WATER IN THE DEEP WELLS 13

II. USING QUIET FOR SELF-MASTERY 25

III. THE PLACE OF FAITH IN SELF-MASTERY 39

IV. HANDLING THE DIS-EASE OF TENSION 55

V. MASTERY THROUGH OUR IDEAL SELF 67

VI. MASTERING THE HOBGOBLIN OF FEAR 79

VII. MEASURING UP TO THE STANDARD OF

GOODNESS 93

VIII. MASTERING THE YES AND NO DEPARTMENT 109

IX. MASTERY FROM THE MYSTERY OF

INTUITION 121

X. OVERCOMING THE DARK OPPONENTS

WHO CHALLENGE THE WAY 133

XI. THE ENNOBLING POWER OF PATIENCE 147

XII. MASTERY AS A CITIZEN IN THE

SOVEREIGN KINGDOM OF GOD 157
 I

KEEPING WATER
IN THE
DEEP WELLS
 ... as he thinketh in his heart so is he.
Proverbs 23:7

He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken
down, and without walls.
Proverbs 25:28

Over the time thou hast no power; to redeem a world sunk in dis-
honesty has not been given thee; solely over one man therein thou has
a quite absolute, uncontrollable power; him redeem.
Carlyle

When Alexander had subdued the world, and wept that none were
left to dispute his arms, his tears were an involuntary tribute to a mon-
archy that he knew not,— man's empire over himself.
Jane Porter

No man is free who cannot command himself.

Pythagoras

Pursue, keep up with, circle round and round your life, as a dog
does his master's chaise. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, un-
earth it, and gnaw it still.

Thoreau
 s.'ome months ago I traveled for several days
along the dusty roads of southern India with three educated
and intelligent Indians. They were alive to the tensions of
the world and eager to discuss and debate, and we spent
much time talking about the differences and frictions be-
tween the Orient and the Occident. One afternoon, as we
were dodging the perennial ox carts and animals on the road,
one of the three told of a European engineer who came to
India to give technical supervision to a vital industrial proj-
ect. He did his work well. But his influence was greatly di-
minished in Indian eyes when on one occasion he lost his
temper. Another of the Indians broke in: "You see, self-con-
trol and discipline are among our highest virtues." The third
added, "Our sages put it this way: 'He who can master him-
"
self can control the world/

Those words which have often returned to me, speak

pertinently to all men modern
of the urgent needs in our
Western life. The
wisdom of the meditative Indian
distilled
thinker has its counterpart in many races and generations.
Plato said for his time and for all time, "For the man who
makes everything that leads to happiness, or near to it, to
depend upon himself, and not upon other men, such a . . .

one . has adopted the very best plan for living happily."
. .

He, with other ancient Greek and Roman thinkers, was in-
dicating that the happiness to be gained from life comes from
l
5
16 Secrets of Self-Mastery

within. To ignore the right inward adjustments of your

needs and desires and outlooks is to make well-being im-
possible.
The Bible repeats this counsel many times. "He that ruleth
hisown spirit is better than he that taketh a city," is a theme
played with many variations in the holy book of the Jew and
the Christian.
Louis XIV, King of France, in one of the longest reigns
in European from 1643 to 1715, faced unending sov-
history,
ereign problems. Although the Peace of Westphalia was
signed in 1648 and the Peace of the Pyrenees in 1659, there
began in 1667 a long series of wars that lasted with little in-
termission to the end of his reign. France experienced suc-
cesses and defeats on the field. Some domestic forward
movements were made, but there were setbacks too. Strong
achievements in the political sphere marked his reign, but
there also were grave mistakes that were injurious to France.
Louis XIV was expressing the wisdom learned by hard ex-
perience when he stated, "There is little that can withstand
a man who can conquer himself."
Louis XIV was saying what the Indian sages had said long
before: "He who can master himself can control the world."
Therein lies many of our modern
the key to the solution of
dilemmas, the answer to many of our personal and corporate
problems, to some of our most poignant needs. The truth is
affirmed that there can't be mastery of life on any frontier
until individuals grow first in the art of mastering themselves.
Each of our national holidays racks up another high score
of deaths on the highways. How many, I wonder, of the
causes listed in reports written by officers— if all the facts were
known— might not really be: "irritation— that stepped on
the accelerator too fast"; or "fear— that jammed on the brakes
too hurriedly"; or "the devil-may-care attitude that threw
discretion to the winds and gambled with tons of steel rush-
ing at seventy miles an hour." Couldn't all of these be more
Keeping Water in the Deep Wells 17

accurately labeled "lack of self-mastery"? How can there be

control on the highways until there are individuals who
know how to control themselves?
One in three of our marriages ends in separation. I am
sure that not one in a million starts out from the station la-

beled "Wedded Life," intending to end up at the terminus

called "Divorce." Why then is it so?
The reasons are as legion as the individual situations. But
those who serve as counselors attest that all too often the dis-
cipline that could have restrained the sharp word or the self-

ish attitude or the cruel act was absent. The control that
provides patience, the wisdom that comes from standing by
commitments and responsibilities, were never achieved.
A successful marriage, a secure home, requires individuals
who face up some in-
to their partnership— not according to
tricate blueprint for wedded life, not by one mate's deter-
mination to control and dominate the other. There must be
first of all a sincere effort to master themselves.
Let us look at our personal histories. Won't most of us ad-
mit that our most tragic mistakes, our deepest remorse, our
most wretched unhappiness, were not caused by someone
else's follies? The real cause was some lack within ourselves.

And not true that our finest achievements, our deepest

is it

pleasures, which stand noble and clearly etched in memory,

were created by our own efforts, by self-mastery? Each of us
has known the warm glow that is our reward for having made
a sure step forward in mastering ourselves.

The spokes in the wheel of self-mastery are many and

complex. In this volume we will think about them together.
The analogy of a wheel is a good one. The wheel eases the
load; it helps move the weight. If properly rounded and sup-
ported by a firm hub and strong, well-placed spokes, it car-
ries the load in purposeful fashion.
The first thing for us to put in place is the hub of the
18 Secrets of Self-Mastery

wheel. All else is related to and dependent on it. The hub

can be denned simply: The real mastery of life comes with
growth in Godliness. It can be said another way: We grow
in self-mastery to that degree that there enters into our think-
ing and feeling the creative and perfect spirit which has made
this creation for order, for justice, for truth, for beauty, for
love, and for peace. It can be expressed simply, but it is the
most powerful and profound thought in all creation.
In a later chapter of this book there will be a fuller con-
sideration of the concept of God. But I think it is important
to emphasize now that we will hold to no restrictive theo-
logical definition of the term "God." We can find revelations
of that creative force called God in all religions; and there
are glimpses of God in everything that is good and true and
beautiful.
Shelley was expelled from Oxford University on the charge
of atheism. In his own words he made the profession that he
was devoted to that "beauty which penetrates and clasps and
fills the world, scarce visible for extreme loveliness." We

would not exclude Shelley; we would say that indeed he had

a devotion to the spirit that we are calling God.
There cannot be a limited definition of God. The finite
cannot completely define the infinite. That which is limited,
such as the mind of man, cannot circumscribe the limitless.

After observing how the same chameleon appeared as red in

color to one man and blue to another, Ramakrishna ob-
served, "The devotee who has seen God in one aspect knows
Him in that aspect only. But he who has seen Him in mani-
fold aspects is alone in a position to say: 'all these different
forms are of one God . .
.'" The Christian faith affirms that
Jesus reveals more of God than man had seen before. But
Jesus Himself did not limit the concept of God to what can
be found in Him. He affirmed, "The Father is greater than
I."
Henry Sloan Coffin has used an analogy I find helpful. He
Keeping Water in the Deep Wells 19

tells how he and fellow campers were seeking a water supply

for a cabin in the mountains. On a hillside there were evi-
dences of water. But those who examined the area had var-
ious opinions. One, seeing signs of dampness, was of the
opinion that there was not a spring there. It was only slight

drainage Another noted that not in one but

of the hillside.
in several places there were tiny trickles of water, which
seemed to substantiate the theory that there really wasn't
any one dependable stream. Another, looking at the site, felt
that while there surely was some water located below the
surface, there probably wasn't enough to supply the needs of
the camping headquarters to be established below.
Excavation, however, showed that the several damp areas,
made by tiny streamlets, converged into one fine spring, pro-
ducing an abundant flow. After the spring had been walled
up into a well hole, it provided, on the hottest days of Au-
gust, all the water needs for the campers and their families
vacationing down in the valley.
This analogy on one facet of understanding the
casts light
great gem God. While there are many manifestations,
called
there is one ultimate source of refreshment. Often it is in-
differently passed by, as was the unseen spring beneath the
topsoil on the mountainside. But still it is there and, prop-
erly cleared and channeled, can be the source of life to those
who live nearby.

George Matheson summed up one aspect of the

thought when he wrote:

Make me a captive Lord,

And then I shall be free;
# # # #

I sink in life's alarms,

When by myself I stand;
Imprison me within Thine arms
And strong shall be my hand.
so Secrets of Self-Mastery

By whatever road man comes to God, it is there he finds

his replenishment, his life.

As we think about self-mastery, let us not identify it

with the notion of a Spartan discipline that stands rigid and
inflexible; do not visualize that stern form of repression that
digs in when it should bend before the storms of fate.
There are, of course, times when it is necessary to hold
the doors fast against cringing fear and cowardice. There are
occasions when all of us must be able to say:

In the fell clutch of circumstance

have not winced nor cried aloud
I

Under the bludgeoning of chance

My head is bloody but unbowed.
But not all the time. A firm hand and an iron arm are only
a part of the secret.
What we are seeking is a broader, deeper association that
not only strengthens each individual for the hurricane trag-
edies of but prepares him for the day-by-day business of
life,

living. Man must

be competent to meet the tiny irritations,
the dull, picayune decisions. The continuous exercise of
sheer will power places an unbearable strain on an individ-
ual, whose taut nerves are one day bound to snap. Who wants
to hide behind barred gates all the time, smothering passions,
repressing concerns, fearing the acts of fate? Don't we prefer
to keep the doors open, knowing that we can handle what-
ever comes, safe in the confidence that we are not slaves but
masters?
Each of us can sweep our soul clean of the devils. In their
place will live a stronger spirit, illuminating that center of
our being, which will drive the devils farther and farther
into the darkness.
In Dostoevski's great book, Crime and Punishment, a
young student, Raskolnikov, falls under the domination of
Keeping Water in the Deep Wells 21

a terrifying idea: "I am the final judge of my own thoughts

and deeds . . . who dares to tell me what I am allowed and

not allowed to do?" He then murders two women and con-

dones his vicious acts by saying, "Am I not free to kill a
loathesome, disgusting woman, if I find it convenient to do
so?"
He chances to meet a girl named Sonia, who has been
forced into prostitution to make money that her family might
eat. In spite of her slavery, Sonia has remained pure in spirit
and devout in her faith. There is an unforgettable scene, in
a shabby room, as Sonia reads from the Bible to Raskolnikov
the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead. Through
the simple trust of that girl, reading the words of an ancient
miracle, another miracle is wrought. The devil born of Ras-
kolnikov's violent idea is driven out as God, the spirit of
justice, of compassion, enters his troubled soul and he learns
the wisdom of Proverbs: ". . . cease from thine own wisdom."
Moved by remorse and repentance, Raskolnikov gives him-
self to the law and goes into penal servitude in Siberia. But
though the man is chained, there is the feeling that he goes
to a slave's drudgery a more masterful man than he ever was
in his so-called liberty. He illustrates the truth, "Make me a
captive Lord, And be free."
then I shall
The final mastery of life is determined by who or what is
master of ourselves. If we add to our deepest sensibilities the
universal compassion, kindness, justice, wisdom, and har-
mony that are imbedded in the core of creation, we are, in
some sense, mastered. But we are masterful.

We do not achieve this goal without thought and con-

cern. The four walls of an empty apartment, transformed
into a home of order and beauty, took someone's vision and
effort. It is so too with the formation of the hub of our self-

The "God-sense" takes time and effort.

mastery.
One way we achieve it is by constantly exposing our mind
22 Secrets of Self-Mastery

to exalted thought and ennobling emotion. From the psy-

chological standpoint it might be termed "educating the sub-

conscious."
We become what we think! Our spiritual health is the
result of our spiritual diet. We say that "we act according
to our lights." But what "light" we have is the result of the
experiences we have had, the ideas we have permitted to grip
us, the ideal to which we have habitually looked, the kind
of people with whom we have associated.
Haven't you found at night in those times between wake-
fulness and sleep, or when the subconscious comes to the bor-
derline of consciousness, that light is sometimes shed on
problems that are of primary concern? Occasionally, at those

times, answers come or solutions are provided that seemed

elusive in the conscious, day-to-day activity.
It is clear that the capacity to find an answer, discover a
solution, is achieved by having stored the reservoirs of both
the and the deeper-than-conscious with high
conscious
thought and deep feeling.
One man I know who has had an amazing facility for solv-
ing problems has told me that his secret is the Bible. Since
boyhood he has read a chapter each day and also some inspir-
ing literature. He has shunned people who would waste his
time and has sought out those who have achieved.
When there is a difficulty he cannot quickly manage in the
push of the day's activity, he postpones it for "a spiritual
fishing expedition." That is a time when he goes into a room
alone, relaxes, and seeks to let his conscious thought be filled
with perfect love and compassion, goodness and truth. He
lets in "as much of what God is as possible into my aware-

ness." Only then does he look at his problem. All who know
that man will tell you of the soundness, and often the un-
canny Tightness, of his judgments. We in similar fashion will
achieve a growing mastery as we nourish our minds with
Keeping Water in the Deep Wells 23

quiet meditation and inspiring truth. We can daily educate

the subconscious to provide light for our dark times.
I've never been to Oberammergau. But the vivid and
glowing reports of that Alpine valley have carried me in
imagination to that place, where the simple natives for gen-
erations have yearly produced a moving Passion play. From
childhood the people of Oberammergau prepare for the role
they will play in that portentous drama depicting the life

and death of Jesus. I have been told that the visitor to Ober-
ammergau is struck not only by the acting on the stage but

by the feeling that the people seem to live their parts each
hour of the day. Living all their lives with the picture of the
ideal, not only do they master the play, but it begins to mas-
ter them, until, in their shops and homes, they show some-
thing of the dignity, of Peter and James and John. They
reflect something of the aura of the Divine Carpenter Him-
self.

You may legitimately say that this tense life of ours is in

wide contrast to the uncomplicated life in that hamlet nes-
tled in the Bavarian Alps. I will not dispute that. But our
need for self-mastery is, therefore, greater still. Individuals
today face decisions that affect the lives of many, decisions
that call for vision and right and deep wisdom. There is a
need for commanding, masterful attitudes in our homes, in
our communities, in our national life— attitudes that can heal
frictions and bring together opposing points of view. God
knows that we need to speak words we shall not have to
recant or regret. We need a stability that will keep us on an
even keel.
The surest way to get it is to practice the art whose creed
is, "I will let more and more of The Perfect Spirit into the

abode of my imperfections."
To the people of my parish I recently made a suggestion
that has as much value as almost all else in my seven years
of preaching and teaching. I asked that every one of us begin
24 Secrets of Self-Mastery

each day with God. It is one of the most powerful sugges-

tions I can give to you.
Begin a regular regime of opening and closing each day
with eternity, with the "foreverness" of order and holiness
and good will. No matter where you are or what you are
doing— driving to work, jostling along on the subway, return-
ing from taking the children to school, or doing the break-
fast dishes—say, in your own words, "Let there be in me this
day something of the silence and goodness and righteousness
and love that is at the heart of eternity."
This is the beginning and the end of the secret of growing
self-mastery:

We will not master be

Until we Master find.
 II

USING QUIET
FOR
SELF-MASTERY
 In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confi-
dence shall be your strength.
Isaiah 30:15

Be it mine to draw from wisdom's fount, pure as it flows, that calm

of soul which virtue only knows.
Aeschylus

Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves to-

gether; that at length they may emerge, full-formed and majestic, into
the daylight of Life, which they are thenceforth to rule.
Carlyle

Coolness and absence of heat and haste, indicate fine qualities. A

gentleman makes no noise, a lady is serene.
Standing on the bare ground—my head bathed by the blithe air,
and uplifted into infinite space—all mean egotism vanishes The cur- . . .

rents of the universal being circulate through me.

Emerson

I have often said that all the misfortunes of men spring from their
not knowing how to live quietly at home in their own rooms.
Pascal
 s.
'ome time ago, at the season of the year when
goldenrod dominates the meadows and bright red leaves chal-
lenge the solemn advance of winter, I received a letter from
an old friend. "It seems almost unbelievable," he wrote,
"that a few weeks ago I was paddling a canoe at night on a
sequestered woodland lake. I was completely alone. A full

moon was [Link] an experience then," he went on to

I

say, "that must have been something like that of Admiral

Byrd when he was alone in the Antarctic for so many months.
You may recall how he spoke of feeling himself a part of the
mystic harmony of all creation."
He continued, "I was beginning to find something of my-
self. There were responsivenesses that I didn't know I had.

But that's all now far away and gone as I get pounded hour
in and hour out by the pressures of my business and my de-
manding family at home."
There was a wistfulness in that letter that haunts me still
in recalling it. It was clear that something very important
was being crowded out—something that only quiet and soli-
tude were beginning to create or restore in that man.
Christopher Morley was telling of his need and that of us
all who live in this clamorous time when he wrote:

Quiet is what we need. By telephone,

The press, the mail, the doorbell, radio
AP or NAM or CIO,
We're micro-organized and overgrown
27
28 Secrets of Self-Mastery

With everybody's business but our own;

Pipe down, chain talkers. Muffle and slow
it

The rapid pulse. I wonder if you know

How good it feels, sometimes to be alone?
Incessantly loquacious generation,
Let yeah and nyah be your communication.
Before the world comes open at the seams
Investsome private enterprise in dreams.
In unimpassioned silence we might find
(If ever) what the Author Had in Mind.

Some of the most important steps we take on the road to

self-mastery are steps that must be taken alone, in the depths
of our quietude. Like the silent roots of a tree that go deep
into the earthand grapple and move the stones they encircle,
so it is grow the roots of con-
the right use of quietness that
fidence into our personalities.
Isaiah, the prophet, a man of steel conviction, a man who
dealt head-on with perplexing problems in his own genera-
tion, was also saying this, not merely to his day but to ours:
"In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in
confidence shall be your strength."
You and I probably would like to say to Isaiah, "You're
hitting the nail on the head for us. We need strength. We
need confidence for our tasks and our dilemmas. We'd like to
know your secret. As we read your biography, Isaiah, we
know what a stalwart prophet you were. You faced life
squarely. We'd like to have what you had. Didn't you get
your strength from those direct and unflinching charges into
the sociological and political issues of your day?"
"On, no, no," replies Isaiah, "that isn't the way at all. It's
a returning—a returning to the solemnity, the mysteries, the
grandeur whence your spirit came. I know from experience
that this is the secret. Elijah, a prophet long before me, found
it out. He said that you don't discover it in outward noise

and conflict. You find it by listening to the still, small voice.

Using Quiet for Self-Mastery 29

And the condition for hearing it is solitude and quiet. You

must make for yourself a time of tranquillity. You have to
keep a core of calmness that nothing on the outside can
touch. You see, the strength of which I am speaking, the
strength that means victory in noisy battles, comes first of all
from some silent time when you've had the chance to culti-
vate your inner confidence alone."

Look at some aspects of the controlled spirit and see

how they have to be tapped to some roots of quiet.
This is the matter of your own individuality. Each of us,

every human being in the world, is distinct. That raw stuff

of our unique selfhood our most precious possession. But

is

how easily it gets buffeted and crushed by what other people

think, by the herd spirit, by the stereotype into which custom
and prejudice try to fit us. We need quiet to keep in touch
with ourselves, to recharge the soul that is uniquely ours.
You need quiet to just be you rather than a straw man.
Many who are concerned about modern man view with
alarm the which contend that
collectivistic theories of society

the greatest fulfillment submerging individuality in the

is in
mold of society. Such a way of life can create dark and twist-
ing pressures on the unique minds of men, who need freedom
to write their poems, build their bridges, compose their
melodies, explore the land, the sea and the air. The discov-
eries that have lifted the human race have not come from
planning commissions, committees, or conclaves. They have
come from individuals who, in liberty and quietness, have
drawn strength from their own selfhood. Forms of govern-
ment that thwart such expression should be opposed.
But even under less extreme circumstances we face other,
more immediate pressures, some more subtle than others,
that impinge upon us all the time. Society is always squeez-
ing us to live in a prescribed manner, to entertain like other
30 Secrets of Self-Mastery

people, to vacation like everyone else— to look alike, to keep

up appearances comparable to our neighbors'.
Though some of these pressures prod us with demonic
subtlety, was confronted with a none too subtle type a short
I

time ago when I was interested in buying an automobile.

After learning a bit about the price of new cars, I ruminated

silently that would be fitting and proper to find a car of
it

1940 vintage that had been treated kindly by someone and

which could be obtained at a most moderate price before it
was put out to the junkyard pasture.
In the course of my shopping I came across an acquaint-
ance who introduced me to a whole new vocabulary— that of
the used-car dealer. For your edification, he informed me
that a "pig" was a car that wasn't popular. It didn't sell
promptly. one liked it. A "tomato" was one that had a
No
questionable background. You couldn't tell what might hap-
pen with it. The transmission could fall out or a wheel might
come off. But a "cream puff" was a satisfactory late-model
car.
Bearing the proper nomenclature in mind, I said firmly,
"Well, I've come to look, then, at your cheapest, nice, clean
'pigs.'

My friend looked at me incredulously and said with great

earnestness, "Ditzen, you can't look at any 'pig.' You should
buy a new car."
I shook my head in definite negation, "That's out."
In confidential tones he pressed on. "Why, you're a pro-
fessional man, a member of dignified calling. You can't run
around in a 'pig.' After all, you wouldn't think of wearing a
dirty shirt. People judge you by the car you drive. You
couldn't go back to your community and let those nice peo-
ple there see you driving on the street in a 'pig.' They'd be
ashamed of you. The very least you can do is to buy a 'cream
"
puff.'

I confess that the wisdom and hard-to-come-by common

Using Quiet for Self-Mastery 31

sense, gained in quiet, succumbed to the stereotype argu-

ment he presented. I fell into the trap of pride and ration-
alization that says,"You don't want to be out of step, or
appear too different, or embarrass your children, etc., etc."
And so I ended up driving away, not in the "best," but in a
"fairly good" used "cream puff."
How real can be such pressures that plague us!
I recount that ridiculous incident because I hope it points
up that we ought to do a lot more intelligent smiling at the
foolish hurdles we jump in order to protect our precious
egos from being bruised by others. What precious time we
waste that could be used in the silent strengthening of our
distinct selfhood.

It is the seed of quiet, and its fruit, that helps to de-

velop a strong personality that can stand up masterfully to
all Some months ago I met a most appeal-
kinds of pressures.
ing Negro woman, who is employed by our State Department
and is doing a wonderful job for our government and people
in Asia. Drawn by her self-possession and dignity, I was in-
terested to learn her background. She told me she, an orphan,
had been raised by a wise and kind grandmother in a tiny
Kansas town. That grandmother had been denied a formal
education, but she had practiced the secret of the ancient
prophet Isaiah: "in quietness and confidence shall be your
strength." She had an inner calm from which came expres-
sions of wisdom that went deep and remained forever with
the little granddaughter who shared her life and love.
One thing she told the child was this: "Never let any out- f),

side slight or hurt or handicap get inside and stay to hurt

you." The second thing the older woman counseled was:
"Be what you are Be it in your soul!
best intended to be.
Break the stereotypes of what others think our people are."
The little girl who heard those words is now a strong and
gracious woman, speaking impeccable English. Her voice is
32 Secrets of Self-Mastery

well modulated. Her enunciation is clear. She is well

groomed, intelligent, self-possessed. What made her that way
were insights from that older woman, who had won her wis-
dom in quietude and then inspired a little girl to grow into
the unique human being she has become.

The development of a masterful personality is lop-

sided unless there is both a developing of and then a holding
back of the reservoirs of quiet. The complete outpouring of
our physical, emotional, and psychic energy into any task or
cause leaves us hollow. The "reserving" of ourselves is basic
to victory in life.

The most masterful personalities I have known have, in

one way or another, kept their own counsel or deliberately
retained their inner quietude. How often Jesus was quiet.
The thirty "silent years" as they are called, when He lived
with His parents in the hillside village of Nazareth above the
plain of Esdraelon, were given over to long periods of silent
thinking, of a steady communing with His own nature. That
discipline gave Him confidence and strength for the years of
public ministry. Above all, it provided Him with serenity
and the assurance that tumultuous external perplexities
would not be met with more noisy conflict. The means to
their resolution lay in the depth and strength of His inner
quietude.
The adage, "Speech is silver but silence is golden," points
to an important aspect of the masterful personality. Consid-
ering this important quality led Carlyle to express it thus:
"Speech isTime, Silence is of Eternity," and led him to
of
muse further on the individuals who have really made con-
tributions to their societies. They were not the ones who
spent themselves wastefully on the noisy inanity of the world.
They were noble citizens of "the great Empire of Silence."
"A country that has none or few of these is in a bad way.
Like a forest which had no roots; which had all turned into
Using Quiet for Self-Mastery 33

leaves and boughs;— which must soon wither and be no for-

est. Woe for us if we had nothing but what we can show, or
speak."
The most important thing about you is not the seen part.
Not the man in a business or profession. Not the woman as
homemaker, mother, participant in community affairs. The
important thing is your relationship to the Empire of Silence.
I recall a conference with an ambassador of our country to

a troubled area of the world. Afterward a publisher of dis-

crimination who had been present commented, "What struck
me was his silence. That man has inner reserves. I felt that
strength. He'll do all right in his tough spot."
The same holds true for you and me. To do all right in
the exacting task of living our own in-
we need to cultivate
ner quiet. Out of this comes the person who will be a victor
in life. We are not masters but slaves if we sell our birthright
of individuality for the mess of pottage called conformity.

There are times when we need the light touch, the

capacity to "laugh off" unnecessary obligations, which we
take on to keep up appearances. And there is warm satisfac-

tion in directing our personality toward the goal for which

it is But always preserve an area of deep serious-
best suited.
ness,where your uniqueness is protected, where it cannot be
pressured, or you will be lost. Here will lie your convictions,
your deepest thoughts, your assurance of yourself and what
is worthwhile.
In 1876 Thomas Huxley made an address at the convoca-
tion of Johns Hopkins University. In
his speech he said that
he was unimpressed with America's size or material achieve-
ments. "You and your descendants," he said, "have to ascer-
tain whether this great mass will hold together under the
forms of a republic (when) population thickens in your
. . .

great cities . . . and communism and socialism will claim to

be heard . .
." Over eighty years ago he showed amazing in-
34 Secrets of Self-Mastery

sight into the course of history. But a more significant ob-

servation was this: "The one great condition of success, your
iole safeguard, is the moral worth and intellectual clearness
of the individual citizen."
Who will deny it? How can there be a free nation, a re-
public of order, unless there are individuals with intellectual
clarityand who have, deep within themselves, come to an
understanding of whatis morally right and wrong and worth-

while? Ask next, how there can be a citizenry who will live
by moral insight? How can there be people who do not
merely repeat sentimentally a pledge of allegiance to the flag
with the words, "liberty and justice for all," but also will
see that it must be applied in their own lives? How can there
be individuals who will not be swayed by prejudice, by noise,
by mob violence? How else than in the foundations laid by
individuals who also build within the quietude of their own
minds and souls?
The tensions and the injustices existing in some of the
Southern sections of our country are not held within by state
lines. They are not isolated by geography. This whole peo-

ple is bound up with what happens in any part of the nation.

Although the whole world may observe this internal tension,
quiet is heaviest on our own conscience, as a treason against
God who made us equal, a treason against the most sacred
principles we have as a people: "liberty and justice for all."
How do we keep on an even keel? How rectify wrongs
that have been done and are still being done? I'm convinced
it's not by continued strife, bitter argument, recriminations.
Nor by more rebelliousness and violence. It must come about
by the communication of a conviction that an individual
knows to be true. It reaches out silently and touches the mind
and soul of another. It is gripping beyond argument. It is a
final pronouncement that says, "The words liberty and jus-

tice have been inwardly heard and I know them to be right

and true." This kind of confidence, this kind of self-mastery—
Using Quiet for Self-Mastery 35

which refuses to be diluted or overcome by the problems it

faces, which patiently, persistently, courageously strives to
make our land more Christian and more truly American-
comes from people who feel deeply, first of all, within their
own quietude.

Introspection requires caution and balance, or it can

become a dangerous thing. It is the means to a goal, not an
end in itself. Many a mental patient, suffering from an ill-

ness known as schizophrenia, has become ill because he has

refused to, or isunable to, maintain his way on the hard
path of reality. He has sought escape in another world where
he is from life's burdens and cares and can, in imagina-
safe
tion, be free of all responsibilities. How much more desirable
this is than struggling with an environment where there is
always one difficulty or another, where you may fall on your
face and have little in the way of achievement or distinction!
The way of health is neither living only on the outside nor
withdrawal into the self. There must be a balance of both.
"There must be a going to life," as the prophet Isaiah would
say, "but ah, my friend, don't forget the returning and the
rest. There is your saving." You come into the quietude of
yourself that you may go to life again with confidence and
strength.

Let's say to ourselves that there is a need for each of

us to make experiments to learn how best to develop the
resources of our own solitude. It's only by doing this that
we gain our soundest understanding about God. That deep
knowing is beyond what the preacher can say to us from the
pulpit, or the theologian can put in his volume, or godly
people can convey to us as we walk with them through life.

The unshakable assurance that there is a purpose at the heart

of all creation comes not by argument or logic. It is heard in
the sound of eternity echoing in our soul.
36 Secrets of Self-Mastery

But there must be receptiveness inside in order to hear

the [Link] deep, inner knowing that we were made for
harmony and not discord, that we were made to achieve peace
and good will in the world, comes the same way, not from
listening to the cries of the exterior world, with its many loud
words lacking in meaning and its agitated activity of little

worth.
You ask: How does one come to an understanding of God?
By reading His word? Yes. By communication with others?
Yes. But most effectively by developing an inner peace. Con-
fidence that we came out of the heart of the Creating Power,
that we were put here to build a useful and significant life,
and that our spirit will be claimed at the end by Him who
made us, opens the door to the noblest generosity that you
and I can achieve. We gain a perspective on life and action
toward life. It enables us to look on the world without frus-
tration or bitterness or aimlessness. We see it as a place where
our lives contribute meaning to creation and we are proud
and happy to be alive.

Emerson, in his essay, "Uses of Great Men," speaks of his

admiration for men of strength and eloquence who stand on
"legs of iron," superbly fulfilling their mission in life,

whether it be with the sword or the staff. Then he goes on:

"But I find him greater when he can abolish himself and all
heroes (and offices), by letting in this element of reason, ir-
respective of persons, this . . . irresistible upward force, . . .

so great that the potentate is nothing." Then follows this

wonderful sentence: "Then he is a monarch who gives a
constitution to his people; a pontiff who preaches the equal-
ity of souls and releases his servants from their barbarous
homages; an emperor who can spare his empire."
That kind of heroic living, that real greatness of spirit, of
which we are all capable, comes from the individual who
has returned to the source whence he came. And the path is
Using Quiet for Self-Mastery 37

through communion with one's heart, one of the surest roads

leading to knowledge of God.

With knowledge of God comes richest kind of inde-

pendence and freedom. Rudyard Kipling gave, in 1923, the
Rectorial Address at St. Andrews University, Scotland, under
the title "Independence." In it, amid many incisive and posi-
tive observations he affirmed: "Let the council of thy own
heart stand, for there is no man more faithful unto thee than

[Link] a man's mind is sometime wont to show him more

than seven watchmen who sit above in a high tower."
By independence I do not mean freedom from restraints
or responsibilities. More importantly, I mean a harmony of
outward action with inner integrity, joined by a humble but
firm belief in what is right. A man speaking and acting in
accordance with his beliefs will feel no fear, no shame, no
regret. The opinions and acts of others have their place— but
they cannot buy off the independent man or tarnish what
he has found in his own quietude.
If we will but listen, we will hear the counsel that gives

us confidence and strength from our inward voices, which

are only heard in quietness and tranquillity. Here is a door
to the understanding of God, the way to generous and useful
outgoingness, to independence of spirit. This indeed is an
added step on the road to self-mastery.
 Ill

THE PLACE
OF FAITH
IN SELF-MASTERY
 According to your faith be it done unto you.
Matthew 9:29

To out a war, you must believe something and want some-

fight
thing with your might. So must you do to carry anything else to an
all
end worth reaching. More than that, you must be willing to commit
yourself to a course, perhaps a long and hard one, without being able to
foresee exactly where you will come out.
O. W. Holmes, Jr.

Faith not belief in spite of evidence, but life in scorn of conse-

is

quence—a courageous thrust in the great purpose of all things and

pressing forward to finish the work which is in sight, whatever the price
may be.
Kirsopp Lake

Faith is the force of life.

Tolstoi

Systems exercise the mind; but faith enlightens and guides it.

Voltaire

I swear I will never henceforth have to do

with the faith that tells the best!
I will have to do only with that faith that
leaves the best untold.
Walt Whitman
ber of people
I -N the course
who have
of the years
said, "I
I have talked to a num-
don't have any faith," or
"I've lost my faith."
It's important to understand what is meant by the word
"faith." Based on Latin and Greek derivations, our modern
English word "faith" means "trust" or "belief." It implies
unshakable persuasion about a person or a matter. It is used
to describe a confidence that is indestructable, an assurance
that is fused into the very nature of a person's being, as car-
bon is merged with iron to produce steel. If we use that word
with such meaning, then we will reply to the individual who
says he has no faith, "It isn't so! You have to have some faith
to go on existing."
A woman years ago told me that she could not believe in
God. To her, Jesus was merely a Palestinian teacher with
visions of grandeur, around whom legend had grown up.
The Church meant only pious mumbo-jumbo and hypocrisy.
"How about people?"
"Faith in them? Heavens no! There's no capacity for good-
ness in man. What keeps any semblance of decency and or-
der," on to say, "is prohibitive law, romantic
she went
sentimentality, and the pressure of mediocre mores."
Recalling that someone had mentioned to me that she was
interested in health and diet, I moved to that area. She
swooped upon the new topic like a trout rising to a hatch of
flies in the pool. The virtues of yogurt and wheat germ were

4i
42 Secrets of Self-Mastery

praised with the same definiteness that religion and all its

trappings had been damned. It was like a crescendo in a sym-

phony as she affirmed, "But it's really blackstrap molasses
that holds the secret."
In mock amazement I said, "You don't mean to say that
you have faith in that horrible-looking stuff?"
"I certainly do."
There has to be faith in something or we wouldn't take
the next step or draw the next breath. At the end of the
blackest, most aimless trail of despair and bitterness, a man,
just to go on existing, must believe that it's better to be
alive than dead.
In Graham Greene's play, The Potting Shed, one of the
characters was James Callifer, a man who couldn't find mean-
ing in anything. He says, "A room without faith [is] . . . . . .

like a marriage from which love has gone. All that's left are
habits and pet names and sentimental objects picked up on
beaches and in foreign towns that don't mean anything any
more. And patience, patience everywhere like a fog." But
there had to be some faith in Callifer's life— if nothing more
than the flickering hope that somewhere, somehow, there was
some meaning—or he wouldn't have gone on.
Our real faith is not necessarily that which we put into
words. It may not be found in our verbal professions. But
whatever it is, it's the basis by which we live, whether it be
adding blackstrap molasses to our diet or turning back from
some chasm of futility to a plateau of hope.
Some people live by a growing confidence that God is and
that they are His children. Some are held by the belief that
there is no mastery in life unless we uphold certain standards
of virtue. At every level it is faith of one kind or another
that comes first.
The person who says that he has lost his faith, I often find,
hasn't faced the fact that a healthy faith is a vital, a changing
thing. It ought to be a growing experience. Many a young
The Place of Faith in Self-Mastery 43

person needs to lose the belief that life was made for his
pleasure and learn by experience that his pleasure is only
found in serving his fellow man.
There may be someone reading these lines who still has a
childish idea of God, which was never enlarged by mature
thinking, which lacks relatedness to life's experiences. Many
such individuals discard something valuable which needs
only to grow with them.
No, don't say you've lost your faith. You may have lost
some concept, which, like the butterfly that breaks from its
cocoon, you have now outgrown. Ask yourself: Was it an
adequate faith? Was it one that you could live by all the
time? Letting it slip away can be the impetus for establishing
a wider, finer structure of faith than you ever had before.
Theodore Beza said centuries ago to the King of Navarre,
"Sire, it belongs ... to the Church of God, ... to receive
blows and give them, but it will please your Majesty to take
notice that it is an anvil which has wore out many hammers."
It's basic to have something like that to build the masterful

life. Faith must be like an anvil that can take life's blows.
If it can't stand up to fate's events and circumstances, it is

not adequate. Each of us needs a faith stronger than the im-

pact of all the hammers of time and tragedy. To acquire it,

there are some aspects of faith we likely should slough off.

When we talk about faith, we're talking about an ac-

tive force. Like any energy, it needs to be replenished. It

must be guarded and converted into life, just as the waters

of a dam must be watched and channeled before being con-
verted into the electricity that will illumine a city. Where
there is such a dynamic faith, man may mold life according
to his will.
This truth is powerfully expressed in many incidents in
the Bible. One story tells of two blind men who appealed to
44 Secrets of Self-Mastery

Jesus, desiring to have their sight restored. As the Master

passed by they cried out,"Have mercy on us."
You might expect Jesus to reply, "Of course, I know you
want to see. I sympathize deeply with the affliction that is
yours. Your darkness is mine. Out of the light that comes
from the Creator you now will see. Behold, your sight is re-
stored!" No, He didn't say that at all.

Observe carefully. Jesus did not answer a word. He did

not stop, but continued on, followed by a few curious ones,
plus the loyal disciples who went with Him. After some time
they came to a village and sought refuge for the night in a
friendly house. The blind men had continued to follow Him
during the long hours, their plea for mercy unfulfilled.
Surely the Master had been aware of them all the time; ap-
parently they had to do more than just wish and petition for
their vision. The blind men, too, entered the house, and
there, in the quiet, Jesus turned to them and asked, "Believe
ye that I am able to do this?"
Jesus was searching deep into the hearts of these men. It
was the crucial test of faith.

The blind men respond, "Yea, Lord."

Then touched He their eyes, saying, "According to your
faith be it done unto you."
This is a spiritual force beyond all measure. It says, "If
you deeply believe, if you have faith, life will be bent that
way before you. Have first a faith that God made you to mas-
ter life, and you will master be!"
Just wanting something, just desiring and thinking about
it, wistfully dreaming, hopefully pleading, isn't enough! You

must really believe it is possible to achieve it, and you must

follow your faith to wherever it leads.

What we are talking about here is not just "blind

faith." It does not avoid recognition of facts and use of good
sense. Rather, it is built upon them. As J. P. Jacks, a prin-
The Place of Faith in Self-Mastery 45

cipal at one of Oxford's colleges, expressed it, "Faith is reason

grown courageous."
Some years back I, with other students of Norman E.

Richardson, a wonderfully stimulating teacher, was engaged

in some research that resulted in a volume entitled Toward
a More Church. The purpose of
Efficient to the book was
guide parishes in developing a well-rounded congregational
life. In the course of our studies we investigated the most

significant symbols used across the centuries to portray Chris-

tian values. We
found the symbol most frequently used for
faith was an anchor. And it is easy to understand why.
Faith is not a burst of light that illuminates for a moment
and then leaves us in darkness again. It is not something

that can be imposed on us from the outside by authority. It

isn't necessarily what we verbally confess in creed.
Rather it's an anchor that drags deep in the ocean of long-
ing, feeling, perceiving. We can't completely see the bottom,
but we know it is there. Our limited vision cannot penetrate
that depth, but this we know: In the dark unseen, that
anchor finds a lodging place. And in that firm holding, our
acts of faith are confirmed. The anchor is tied to the ship of
our life. Its value is beyond any price, because when the
storms blow, it from destruction.
steadies the ship, saves it

We have courage to believe that the anchor will hold and

that we will ride out any hurricane.
This dynamic faith gives above all else, an unshakable con-
fidence in God's Providence. He rules. Although man doesn't
understand the storm and cannot see the reason for its dam-
age, faith in God creates calm in the heart.
Yes, faith is reason grown courageous. It requires faith to
courageously affirm that what appears to be only turmoil has
some part, a significant part, in bringing things more aright
than ever before. Faith says, "All things—not just the 'nice'
things, not just 'some' things—work together for good to those
that love God."
46 Secrets of Self-Mastery

The struggle for that faith at times may cause mental

anguish and heartbreak. Bitter tears may flow. But faith is
the anchor that will preserve us and strengthen us to humbly
say: "Not my will but thine be done."

Some of the most thoughtful scholars of this genera-

tion have contended, as did Leslie Paul a few years ago in his
book, The Annihilation of Alan, that the violence of our
times reflects man's revolt against the emptiness of a life that
has lost such an anchor of faith. Leslie Paul was thinking of
the faith that has produced the great principles of Western
freedom. These, he saw, are being
civilization: justice, mercy,
undermined. They are tottering, and in many places we have
seen them already crumble and fall before onslaughts of
cruelty and terror. There is an absence of what Plato called
"intellectual principle."
Examine the history of our Western civilization and you
will see that moral structure is the result of a faith born
its

of the Greek, Jewish, and Christian traditions. Built into its

core was a powerful faith in God and a faith in man. That
faith has been weakened. For many it has become a habitual
rather than an intellectual principle that holds life anchored
securely against storms.
It was so with Germany in 1930. That nation epitomized
the finest Western civilization— educated, scientific, cultured
—going through all the customary, accepted motions of Chris-
tian doctrine and practice. But it was superficial gloss, con-
cealing the fact that the honest values and principles in
individuals and in the culture as a whole had become eroded.
Let us never forget what happened there. It could happen
elsewhere: treachery supplanting justice; mercy completely
strangled by cruelty; the warmth of freedom enslaved in cold
shackles; truth thrown from its place of pre-eminence, and
King Lies, put in its place.
To master the twisting, chaotic forces that can destroy our
The Place of Faith in Self-Mastery 47

civilization, there has tobe faith in—not lip service to— free-
dom and and mercy, the conviction that those quali-
justice
ties sprang from the heart that brought forth this vast and
mysterious creation.
Richard Livingston, a few years back, observed that
Sir
every civilization grows up around a core of beliefs and
values. Observing that when that healthy nerve becomes
deadened, the culture decays and then dies, he turned to our
modern life and saw that that is happening to us in the twen-
tieth century. We
have become, he contends, "a civilization
of means without ends; with an ample body, but with a
meagre soul; with a rich inheritance, but without clear values
or a ruling principle."
Well, a culture, a civilization is made up of people, of in-
dividuals. And individuals who work at rebuilding a healthy
faith in themselves, not only have an anchor for their own
life; they also bring health to their civilization. To grow,

then, in a vigorous faith is to provide a tonic for our sick

times.

Now let us move to the important question of how to

achieve the vigorous faith that means personal and social
health.
Wecannot gain a faith without continuous intellectual
seeking and growing. The great enemies of faith, on any
level, are suspicion and skepticism. You can have confidence
in an individual, but let a cloud of suspicion about that in-
dividual enter your awareness and your faith in that individ-
ual lessens, perhaps dies. But more than that happens. Doubt
is an insidious poison, which, like an infection, enters the
body at one point and soon permeates the whole system.
Something must be immediately done when that virus
enters our consciousness. One individual I know, who has
developed a positive and healthy faith toward God and man
and life, has told me that on any level— whether it be sus-
48 Secrets of Self-Mastery

picion or disbelief regarding an individual or an idea—she

immediately backs off to seek the facts and weighs the evi-
dence. But most of all she puts suspicion aside and tries to
place emphasis on what is positive.
If it is an individual who causes her doubt, she centers her

thought and concern on the good qualities of that person.

The intensity of her original faith may have to be modified;
but on the other hand, by not unreasonably condemning the
person because of some flaw, she brings balance to bear on
her judgment.
To develop this evaluation of situations takes time; it re-
quires the constructive and positive effort of observation, of
honest appraisal and synthesis. But out of it emerges a new
foundation for faith. And it usually produces a stronger,
maturer, sounder faith.

To the individuals who have said, "I've lost my faith,"

I have on occasion replied, "Well, what are you doing about
it?" If the good bucket that has carried water from the well

develops a leak and doesn't hold water any more, the only
way I know to make the vessel useful again is to plug up the
how about getting another
hole. If that isn't satisfactory,
bucket? How foolish we are when in self-pity and doubt we
mourn, "I have lost something," but then make no effort
to go back over the path we traveled to determine where it
was lost.

Years ago, in postgraduate work, a fellow classmate en-

gaged in an action that I thought was reprehensible. Whereas
he had been high in my estimation, he was now no "lower
than mud." But I was unhappy in my feeling toward him; I
found the incident troubling me in sleep. It made for em-
barrassing and unpleasant moments in our contacts together.
After some time I decided to speak to him openly and frankly
about the incident. Doing so gave him an opportunity to tell
his side of the story. It so happened that his side revealed
The Place of Faith in Self-Mastery 49

that I had misjudged him. Circumstantial evidence had alto-

gether misrepresented the real facts of the case. With my
faith in him restored and modified, our friendship was re-
established.
George Santayana wrote in a letter to William Lyon
Phelps, "Faith is an assurance inwardly prompted, springing

from the irrepressible impulse to do, to fight, to triumph."

Such an assurance that pays off in successful living has to
receive constant attention and care.
One of our finest satisfactions in life comes from what we
create or do ourselves. Some time ago I visited the farm of a
friend. The property was purchased already furnished with
interesting items. My friend and his family had spent great
effort toimprove the property and to add to the hospitable
furnishings. As we wandered through the rooms I felt that
the keenest satisfaction was shown when we were shown what
had been done with their own hands:
"We painted this room."
"You see that table over there. Our son made that in his
woodworking class."
"I wish you could have seen this room before we took out
the wall that was there. The whole family, working together,
refinished the floors. Then we papered the walls and painted
the ceiling." What had been done with their own effort was
what was most meaningful.
The faith that is most meaningful to us has come from our
effortand fashioning. As we use our own minds, make ob-
servations,and then crystallize judgment, we build up an
inward treasure that gives us deep satisfaction.

One of the most helpful things we can do is to stimu-

late each other to think about and explore this area of belief
and value judgments.
When I am asked to perform the marriage of young peo-
50 Secrets of Self-Mastery

pie, I make occasion to speak to them of the importance of

working cooperatively together in all phases of life. From
years of counseling with people who have difficulties in their

marriage, I tell them the most important area of all is faith.

The togetherness that really supports us in life doesn't come

as we stand looking at each other but rather as, together, we
look outwardly, at the abiding principles and values, the
eternal truths. In talking together, in sharing the results of
thinking and reading with one's mate or with a close asso-
ciate or friend, both the foundation and the towers of one's
faith are made firmer.

Many an individual grows in faith through the experi-

ence of private as well as public worship. In the long and
bitter struggles of Holland to achieve its independence, there
was one particularly dark period when the little nation
seemed to be almost overwhelmed. In the heat of the conflict
one of the generals of William of Orange sent a missive in-
quiring if he had achieved an alliance with England or
France. Such an alliance would have provided much needed
aid in those desperate hours. The reply of William is re-
corded thus: "You ask me if I have made a treaty for aid
with any great foreign power; and I answer, that before I

undertook the cause of the oppressed Christians in these

provinces, I made a close alliance with the King of Kings;
and I doubt not that He will give us the victory." The faith
of William of Orange, which gave power and confidence to
his words and actions, and which had a large part in the
eventual victory for the Netherlands, is faith that you and I
can experience in worship.
We permit ourselves at times to lead such mundane and
grubby lives, carrying commitments from which we cannot

escape. But we bend so heavily under them that we see noth-

ing else. We are in danger of losing the sense of wonder and
The Place of Faith in Self-Mastery 51

of awe, qualities indispensable to a great faith and a life of

breadth and openness.
Go to church. Not critically, not with the feeling that you
are there as a spectator. Go as a participator. The clergyman
will have his inadequacies, the choir may sing off key, you
may see people there whose actions outside that building are
far from worthy. But don't let these matters trouble you.
You are in a sacred place, a place where men and women
have come through the centuries to pray to God.
No matter how humble the sanctuary may be, say to your-
self that the doors of this place open onto the vast mystery
of the meaning of all things. You are there humbly and re-

ceptively, opening your heart to it all. Sing the great hymns.

Pray the prayers from the treasury of spiritual experience.
Let your wonderment at your origin and your destiny rise on
wings of faith. Let the people, the physical place, fall away,
and you add another dimension
will to experience to give
inner support and outward power.
The matter of prayer, both personal and corporate, is an
avenue for us to explore and cultivate as a means to a grow-
ing faith. As you think of God as being the spirit of perfect
harmony and peace, the spirit of creative com-
love and truth,
passion that enfoldsall mankind and all creation, a breadth

and depth will come to your mind and your soul as you
meditate on that divine power and seek to stand in its pres-
ence.
In The Struggle Within Olgivanna Lloyd Wright attests,

"We can magnetize and strengthen our faith with prayer.

Prayer is a powerful emanation." That's true. As we engage
in regular prayer, we bring into our person a peace and calm
that counteracts worry and frustration.

Many are able to enrich their faith by reading the

Bible and by renewing contact with the beginnings of our re-
52 Secrets of Self-Mastery

ligious heritage. When I speak of reading the Bible I do not

mean to begin at the first chapter of Genesis and read the
entire book straight through. There is unquestioned merit
in that. Several lifetimes could be spent in studying the Bible,
and the spiritual treasures it possesses in every book would
not be exhausted.
But to develop faith, I think it best to select "a Bible
within the Bible." Read the Psalms, some of the great biog-
raphies of the Old Testament; the messages of the Prophets,
alight with insights; and, of course, the crowning revelations
in the New Testament; all are rich sources to stimulate the
mind and nourish the soul. The life and teachings of Jesus,
together with the chaste literary beauty of the Bible, will
bring you quiet and calm as well as faith.

There comes to my mind, among the many stories from the

Bible, the unforgettable one about the father and his de-
mented son. All the love and the misery of the parent's
thwarted hopes are felt in his words to the Master: "If thou
canst do anything, have compassion on us and help us." Jesus
responds to his heartrending plea, "If thou canst believe, all
things are possible to him that believest." You see what hap-
pened. The father is not merely a spectator; he is brought
into the activity, he is a participator. Jesus tells him that his
own belief, his cry for belief to overcome his unbelief, will
open the way to the power that conquers. With the father's
intense longing fused to unswerving faith, the Master is able
to restore the boy.
If there is to be any healing, any miracle wrought, any
movement forward, it takes more than mere vocal sentiment
or surface desire to turn the tide. Jesus has shown you the
way: Believe with such absorbed intensity, such unwavering
persistence, that every cell of your body, every impulse of
your mind, is concentrated toward the end you desire. And
each time you read the Bible the truth will be underlined
The Place of Faith in Self-Mastery 53

that faith is not passive resistance nor quiet waiting. It is an

active, powerful force within you.

Association and friendship with people of faith is an-

other way to grow in faith ourselves. How frequently it has
been said, and rightly, that faith can't be taught; it has to be
caught. The true spirit of wholesome faith is communicated
to others, who in turn pass it on to those who come in con-
tact with them.
One of the best examples over the centuries has been
friendship with Jesus of Nazareth, the radiant source of mo-
tivating a faith that this world can neither give nor take away.
Create friendship with men like Socrates, Gandhi, Albert
Schweitzer through their writing; some of their persuasions
will fire do not speak of such men
your own convictions. I

with any intent or desire to exclude those who are living by

our side daily. There are individuals of noble character and
great capacity around us. Make occasion to meet them, be
with them. They have something to give to us.
One of the values of seeking association with individuals
of faith is and assurance we gain from them.
the perspective
You remember little chicken who,
the childish story of the
pausing under an oak tree, was bumped on the head by a
falling acorn. Fear-struck, the little chick cried that the sky
was falling. Similarly, left to our own devices, we can easily
be thrown off on a tangent by the intrusions and pains of the
day. But association with individuals who have, by medita-
tion and experience, developed a more stable faith can help
us to build our own more soundly.

developed too by acting on the basis of the

Faith is

knowledge and faith we have. George Buttrick put it, "We

must if— this requirement is levied on every realm of
live 'as
life. The must experiment 'as if.' Those two little
scientist
words are the synonym of hypothesis, and science proceeds
54 Secrets of Self-Mastery

by hypotheses. The scientist does not know the inmost nature

that his diagnosis is correct: the highway to knowledge is to
"
act 'as if.'

You have, let us say, a feeling that men are basically good.
It is not a firmly set faith yet, but if you act as though it

were true, you will find that the belief is settling down more
and more into a solid foundation for some of your deepest
convictions. You will find that men are good.

David Livingston said, speaking of faith, "It requires

perpetual propaganda to attest its genuineness." That is the

final point to remember. You do not grow in faith merely
by discussing itby playing with one possibility
abstractly,
and then another. You grow into it by affirming it, by living
it. Take on a conviction and say, "I will look on
a firm stand
life,and act in though this were final truth." Doing
life, as

that, you will find that it is so and your faith will be strength-
ened. Or you will find that it is not altogether so and you
will need to stand more firmly until you have won.
As you work at it, yours will be the conviction that life can
be molded after your faith. That is one of the most powerful
thoughts and truths in all human experience, put with beau-
tiful simplicity by Jesus: "According to your faith, be it done

unto you."
 IV

HANDLING
THE DIS-EASE OF
TENSION
 For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose un-
der heaven.
Ecclesiastes 3:1

I have seen the travail which God hath given to the sons of men
to be exercised therewith.
Ecclesiastes [Link]

Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Matthew 6:34

The superior man is always candid and at ease with himself or

others; the inferior man is always worried about something.
Confucius

O God, in restless living

We lose our spirits' peace
Calm our unwise confusion,
But Thou our clamor cease.
Let anxious hearts grow quiet,
Like pools at evening still,
Till Thy reflected heavens
All our spirits fill.
Harry Emerson Fosdick

After all, after all we endured, who has grown wise?

We take our mortal momentary hour
With too much gesture, the derisive skies
Twinkle against our wrongs, our rights, our power,
Look up the night, starlight's a steadying draught
For nerves at angry tension.
Robinson Jeffers

The truly wise man must be as intelligent and expert in the use
of natural pleasures as in all the other functions of life. Relaxation . . .

and versatility, it seems to me, go best with a strong and noble mind,
and do it singular honor. There is nothing more notable in Socrates

than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and
dancing, and thought it time well spent.
Montaigne
 E, Ivery adult who reads these lines knows that
one of the portentous problems for modern man in the
Western world is to master the tensions that destroy effi-
ciency, that cause dis-ease and death.
Says John A. Schindler, M.D., "A big textbook of medicine,
such as medical students use, contains the account of roughly
1,000 different diseases. Emotionally induced illness is as
common 999 put together.
as all the other
"In 1951 a paper from the Yale University Out-Patient
Medical Department indicated that 76% of patients coming
to that clinic were suffering from (what the medical profes-
sion calls) emotionally induced illness." And in the southern
part of our country, New Orleans' Ochsner Clinic reported
that of 500 consecutive patients who were admitted to the
department that handles gastrointestinal disease, 74% were
suffering from emotionally induced illness.
And the cause? The medical profession, using laymen's
language, says that it results, with scattered exceptions, from
some form of needless tension.
It is not the natural tautness of the animal alert and

aquiver in the presence of danger. Neither is it the concen-

tration of the animal as it stalks its prey until the need of
hunger is filled. Rather, it's a destructive tension that is con-
tinuous, that pounds the victim after the factory whistle
blows, after the appointed hours for work are ended.
A friend who has been helpful in the ever-so-slight steps I
57
58 Secrets of Self-Mastery

have made in the art of living, calls this "spinning the

wheels." It's automobile on an incline, when the
like the
street is hard packed with wet snow. The motor races and
roars. The rear wheels spin. But all that comes from it is
terrific strain on the engine and burning of the tires. The

vehicle doesn't get anywhere.

"I have seen," says the Old Testament Book of Ecclesiastes,
"the travail which God hath given the sons of men to be
exercised therewith."
In our generation it is tension that puts the travail upon
[Link] of us are too often like the fighter who is punch-
drunk. An injury has deadened his sense of when to stop.
The bell rings to end the round, but he still goes on flailing
the air, pouring out his energy, swinging and punching— all
to no avail.

Of course, there's another side to this matter of ten-

[Link] yourself if you ever saw a tense turnip. To my
knowledge a dandelion never had a nervous breakdown or
the equivalent in the vegetable kingdom of that all too
familiar ailment of genus Homo sapiens, stomach ulcers.
Jesus gave us a lovely illustration: the lilies of the field
which "sow not, neither do they spin. Yet Solomon in all his
glory was not arrayed like one of these." That picture is good
for us to keep in mind. Perhaps there are times when it could
help us ease unnecessary strains we put on ourselves. But
those gracious lilies do not have to face what man does—
world where there are choices and decisions, where there are
responsibilities and moral consequences, where there is op-
portunity as well as a need for spiritual questing and intellec-
tual growth.
God created the lilies of the field. But the Bible also tells
us that when man was made, God breathed into him His
own breath, His own spirit. So a consciousness different from
a possible consciousness of the lily was instilled in him. It
Handling the Dis-Ease of Tension 59

was an awareness of a world in which there is value, one in

which some things are more significant or important than
others. A world in which man could drift aimlessly, but
where also he could gird himself to struggle against the tide.
God gave His crowning creation an awareness of the heights
of good but also the depths of evil.
As that spirit was breathed into man there was created too
a capacity to respond or not respond. Then, as surely as night
follows day, tension was bound to exist too.
It became necessary at times to be taut, to stand tense and

inflexible. In the southern part of France, where the Protes-

tant Huguenots were imprisoned during the long black night
of religious persecutions, there is, I'm told, a single word
scratched in the stone floor of a prison cell. It was the work
of many years, done with the fingernails of a prisoner.
Through long months the soft nail scratched at the unyield-
ing stone this one terrible, inspiring, awesome word, for all

to see: resiste. There is great loss if man neglects his power-

ful capacity to resist injustice or mediocrity. He loses, and so
does the world, if he cannot marshal his inner resources and
become tense in a struggle for something better. And how
important it is to use this power well, to keep it in its place.

The market is glutted with all kinds of advice telling

us how to achieve this worthy end. Bookstores and news-
stands, with their many books, papers, and periodicals de-
voted to the problem, give proof of a real need. Much of the
advice I've read is good, but some of it seems pathetically
shallow. Many times we're told that if we can just keep a
pleasant frame of mind, make a game of living, turn our work
into play, be at ease, take things a little more "in stride,"
stop striving too hard, get away from the sharp competitive
struggle that tears us apart, all will be well. God knows we
could apply much of this with profit.
In the fifteenth century Erasmus was giving to the people
60 Secrets of Self-Mastery

of his time a similar kind of advice as he wrote, "After you

have din'd, either divert yourself some Exercise, or take a
at
Walk, and discourse merrily, and Study between whiles . . .

A little before you go to sleep read something that is ex-

quisite, and worth remembering; and contemplate upon it
till you fall asleep ." . .

But such advice wears pretty thin after trying it out for a
while. Certainly Erasmus' counsel will seem archaic for
many, as its modern form will seem watered down. It's all
right to say, "I'm going to whistle a tune and take my job
with a song and dance." But there are times when whistling
and dancing are out of place and inadequate to the situation
that has to be met. It's all well and good to preach to our-
selves about keeping the light touch. Smile to yourself as you
say, "I may end up in the poorhouse but I'm going to have

a good time getting there and I'll live to sing at the funerals
of the poor devils who beat me up the ladder." But when the
going gets really tough and the demands heavy, this turns
out to be an inadequate solution. The hunter, in tiger coun-
try, should have more than a peashooter.
One needs a heavy weapon to bring down big game. The
complexities and pressures of modern life make formidable
beasts. The counsel that says, "Keep the light touch" is firing
with that peashooter when a monster is charging.
That is why the Bible is more helpful than many of our
modern and panaceas. It's realistic. It's bal-
prescriptions
anced. Always positive and constructive, it yet knows the
negative and destructive forces man must face.
Nowhere does the sacred record tell us we can walk along
a perpetual path of sunshine, where inner lightheartedness
can compliment the perennial flowers along the way. "There
is a time for every purpose under the sun .... there is a time
for war." There is a time for tension, for mobilizing our vital
energies for the task. But the Bible goes on to affirm that
there is another side "There is a time for peace." There
too.
Handling the Dis-Ease of Tension 61

is a time when the conflict is over, when the demands ought

to be light,when the call for sacrifice and effort is negligible.
There will always be issues that have to be decided, mo-
mentous challenges flung at us, wrongs around us that need
to be righted. What will we do in the face of them? Will we
just view life pleasantly? Will we be passive? Neutral? No,
there is a time for peace and its pleasantness, and we will rest
and gain strength back while "God's in His heaven, All's
right with the world." But when called, we will not fail in
our obligation to face issues, accept challenges, right wrongs.
Something of that balance is expressed in the amusing
anecdote about a man who had a long and rugged period of
highly pressured work. Finally the time came for him to leave
for his vacation.
"Whatare you going to do?" an acquaintance asked.
"I'm going to find a little cabin on a lake," was the re-
sponse. "I'm going to put a rocking chair on the front porch.
Then I'm going to sit and for a week do nothing."
"That's interesting," was the response. "After the week is
up what then?"
"Well," was the reply, "I might start—just a little bit, mind
you— but I might start rocking."

Perhaps you are thinking, "This discussion doesn't help

me. I have such terrific responsibilities, and there's nothing
I can do about it. The organization with which I am associ-

ated is so complex. We're going through continual changes

and I just can't get away from it. I'm an engineer, or I'm a
wife and mother, trying to run the seven-ring circus called
the modern home, or I'm in sales and I have to keep the pres-
sure on every minute."
The tensions borne by women are as acute as those of men.
Managing a household, being cook and chauffeur and dish-
washer and glamour girl, participating in the church fair, the
P.T.A., and collecting for the Red Cross, put on pressures
that are very real. Such an individual could possibly be say-
62 Secrets of Self-Mastery

ing, "Ihave so much to do. I certainly know about the neces-

sary warring to get accomplished all that needs doing. But I
can't, as much as I'd like to, get into my life the other side
of the picture, the time for peace. I can't read poetry or raise
roses or what-have-you."
If that thought is somewhere in the back of your mind, tell

yourself right now that such a thought is a sin against the

intelligence God gave you. It's sin against your body that was
made to house your mind and spirit. You can make headway,
and you must, in balancing the scales!
We may get some mythical ladder of achieve-
to the top of
ment. But in our deepest selves we know that the crowning
achievement won't be ours if, somewhere along the way, we
haven't first mastered the pounding of the tensions that send
us to doctors with all kinds of complaints and ailments.
Those men so often understand the real cause of our pain,
our ache, or our "dragginess." They don't have the time to
counsel us to the point where they can lay bare the cause of
the dis-ease for us. If they could, we would see tension which
we had not mastered.
But we ourselves can do something about it. When we start
packing the brief case to take home at night or for the week
end, we can pack it full, put it at the side of the desk, then
go to the door, open it, lock it, and walk away empty-handed.
Some evening, as you ride home on the train, rather than
reading of juvenile delinquency in the late evening edition,
just don't buy a paper at all. Don't talk to anyone about the
drop in the stock market. Don't permit your spirits to get
lower and your blood pressure higher.
Begin that book on how to tie flies. Remember you prom-
ised yourself last summer that you would. Check out of the
luncheon that is a committee meeting. When you leave the
office, avoid the trap of "shooting the breeze about what has

to be done tomorrow" over what a cartoonist called the

"triple-cocktailed nirvana." Rather, be a character! (That
Handling the Dis-Ease of Tension 63

phrase, "be a character," is a significant one.) Be an individ-

ual. Go bench or the library or a museum.
to a park
Use a little time, as you go to work in the morning, to
think of the many and varied people who make your city.
Ask how much you know about your town other than the
sidewalk you pound from the station to your place of em-
ployment. And to get a change of pace, how about finding
some answers to the questions that occur to you? It probably
will turn out to be fun and full of surprises.
If we take on more than we should, we are like the little

boy at the picnic who lustily gobbled six hot dogs. He may
try to forget them as he runs on the beach. But his digestive
system, working overtime, won't let him forget them. "Two
hot dogs, eaten slowly, would have been better, Johnny," we,
in great wisdom, inform the boy. We should remember such
horse-sense counsel at 3:00 a.m. while we're still churning
over yesterday's two committee meetings, and the special con-
ference with the boss, the dinner date, telephone calls, and
dictation that we face tomorrow.
We begin to fashion the shaft of balanced self-mastery as
we and in terms of our own individ-
realistically, honestly,

uality say, "With God's help and my own intelligence, there

is going to be peace as well as war. There has to be both in

my life. I may not be able to escape the former, but I will

not let the latter escape me."

Then that shaft of realism must be joined to the hub.

There's no ultimate conquering of our tension, no balance
of abiding peace, if we don't maintain contact with God.
If there an infection in our bodies, the forces of healing
is

automatically marshal themselves to combat it. We have also

been given a mind and a moral sense to combat the dis-ease

of tension, which is just as insidious as any virus that can get
into our bodies. We possess resources, mentally and spiritu-
64 Secrets of Self-Mastery

ally, that will control the dangers of tension, just as we have

white corpuscles that fight germs. The difference is that the
process is not wholly automatic, as it is with our physiological
make-up. The mind and
the soul need some source of power
our resources. The power that does it is the
that will release
awareness and presence of God within you. This creative and
creating power moves through all things and seeks to move
through your life to give it order and power and balance and
peace.
Rheinhold Niebuhr, one of the significant theologians of
our day, has made the point several times that there is an
Caught in the web of original sin,
"inevitability of tension."
we yet long for a better world and better
life, which is denied

us by the existence of personal and social sin. So we are in-

evitably strained and pulled by our own imperfect nature, a
moral world, and aspirations that cannot be fulfilled. Nie-
buhr, with the profoundest philosophers and theologians of
the ages, affirms that the only answer that can be helpful is

the grace of God. God's forgiveness, His love, coming into

our souls, will, as nothing else can, break the shackles of
tension and bring restorative peace.
You may read that statement and say, "It's interesting. I've

heard it since childhood. It's a difficult concept to grasp.

Maybe it's helpful to someone else, done a thing
but it hasn't
for me." Its meaning will remain obscure if you think and
talk that way. But if you consider it carefully, experiment
with it often, one day you will come to know its cleansing,
redemptive power and its true meaning.
There may be someone you don't know who loves, ad-
mires, respects you very much. But it will do you little good
until you know about it, until you seek it out, until you
believe it, until you can reciprocate with affection and re-
gard and respect. So it is here. The healing from the most
profound power in all existence, which can bring us into
Handling the Dis-Ease of Tension 65

balance, will come only as we seek it, grow in believing it,

accept the love and respect and give our devotion in return.

I can almost hear someone saying, "This matter of

tension has been rehashed so often, in so many ways, and I
still don't have anything that I can really lay my hands on
that will help me. The concept of God is as vague as ever.
Can't you be more specific?"
I think IHere is a simple suggestion, which has been
can.
helpful to me and others have told me has helped them reach
a measure of peace when they were all twisted up with ten-
sion. One of the best-loved hymns of the church, "Dear
Lord and Father of Mankind," by John Greenleaf Whittier,
contains two stanzas that I suggest you commit to memory
or write out on a card to carry daily in your wallet or purse.
At least once in the day (always try to begin in the morning
before the load of work is on your shoulders) read or repeat
the lines. Do it slowly, savoring the thought, the beauty of
language. Let the ideas sink deep into your consciousness to
help you on the road to self-mastery:

Dear Lord and Father of mankind

Forgive [my] foolish ways
Reclothe [me] in [my] rightful mind
In purer lives thy service find,
In deeper reverence praise.

Drop thy still dews of quietness

Till all [my] strivings [all the tensions] cease;
Take from [my] soul the strain and stress,

And let [my] ordered life confess

The beauty of Thy peace.
 V

MASTERY
THROUGH OUR
IDEAL SELF
 And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. And, behold, there
was a man named Zaccheus, which was the chief among the publicans,
and he was rich . And he ran before, and climbed up into a syca-
. .

more tree to see him And when Jesus came to the place, he looked
. . .

up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zaccheus, make haste and come
down; for today I must abide at thy house.
Luke 19:1-5
Our ideals are our better selves.
A. Bronson Alcott

The situation that has not its duty, its ideal, was never yet occupied
by man. Yes, here, in this poor miserable, hampered, despicable actual,
wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy ideal; work it
out therefrom, and, working, believe, live, be free. Fool! the ideal is in
thyself.
Carlyle

At some time in our life we feel a trembling, fearful longing to do

some good thing. Life finds its noblest spring of excellence in this hid-
den impulse to do our best.
Robert Collyer

Great people and champions are special gifts of God, whom He

givesand preserves; they do their work, and achieve great actions, not
with vain imaginations, or cold and sleepy cogitations, but by motion
of God.
Martin Luther

The difference between one man and another is by no means so

great as the superstitious crowd suppose.
Macaulay

Ah— the thrill of wrestling with dreams forever beyond us.

Anzia Yezierska
 o
masters of our lives
ne of the reasons some
is that we let
of us don't become
the best, the ideal self that
we were intended to be, become thwartedfor any one of a
hundred and more reasons. It may be held down or held
back by circumstances, suffocated by events, put off the track
by the expectation of others, but no matter what the cause,
we suffer from inner dissatisfaction and frustration.
Some light is shed on this situation from an incident de-
scribed in the Book of Luke. The place was Jericho. What
does that name mean to you? The geographer and geologist
might be interested in the fact that Jericho, near the Dead
Sea, is 825 feet below sea level. It is interesting to the archeol-
ogist as the site of civilizations that go back to six thousand
years before Christ, and earlier. To
the sociologist, humani-
tarian, and political strategist, its large modern population of
displaced Arabs from Israel is a matter of concern. The his-
torian of the Roman Empire cannot avoid the name Jericho,
because it is associated with the names of Roman conquerors
and emperors: Bacchides, Aristobulus, Pompey, Vespasian,
among others. Herod the Great built a winter palace at
Jericho and seemed to hope it would become a famed winter

resort, a fame that has not been realized.

And, of course, the biblical historian is interested in the
place. He will tell you, from his knowledge of biblical refer-
ences, that there are associations in Jericho with Joshua, the
strong military leader of the wandering Israelites, and also
69
70 Secrets of Self-Mastery

with the prophet Elisha. It was at Jericho that King Zedekiah

was defeated by the Babylonian army, at which time the
kingdom of Judah came to a bloody and tragic end.
I've seen Jericho in recent years. In memory three things
stand out. One, the Arab women with their lovely flowing
robes, carrying water pots on their heads with stately grace.
Two, the fascinating excavations at Jericho, revealing layer
after layer of fragments from civilizations that are no more,
dug deeper and deeper. And three, a syca-
as the archeologist
more which was pointed out as the one where Zaccheus
tree
climbed to look down on the Master when He came to that
town.
It behooves the modern traveler to examine some of the
landmarks. I wondered, as I looked at that tree, if it could

have been alive for two thousand years. Was it truly the tree
into which Zaccheus climbed and whose branches shaded for
a moment the most compelling spirit of history as He paused
beneath it?

I confess to a rather suspicious reaction to specific sites,

such as that one, particularly after being told of an incident

in Egypt. Travelers near the pyramids of Giza, seeing the
Nile some distance away, asked if Moses was taken out of the
bulrushes in that area. Their guide responded, "Well, it used
to be farther up the Nile. But we've moved it nearer for the
convenience of the tourists." How could one be sure that this
really was the tree Zaccheus climbed? But any doubt on that
score could not suppress the thoughts that came to mind, just
being there.

But Jericho's widest fascination is due to the fact that

Jesus was there and that He centered His attention on one

man, Zaccheus. The aura of eternity about Jericho comes
from the fact that that man, caught by the attention of Jesus,
found the sense of his best self and he began living again by
that.
Mastery through Our Ideal Self 71

Sometimes it surprises me to realize that for eight years I

have been minister to a wonderful congregation in Bronx-
ville, New York. In listening to many a sermon, they have
heard me at times repeat myself. It's bound to be that way,
because there are certain sources that each of us go back to
time and time again. When "the square pegs won't seem to
go in any of the right holes," as someone put it, when the
mind needs refreshment or stimulation, I go first to the Bible
and then to one of a group of great spirits— Emerson,
Thoreau, Shakespeare, Carlyle, William James. In preaching,
as in writing this volume, I rely heavily on them and either
consciously cite them or unconsciously express their thoughts.
On the basis of what I find meaningful, I'm impelled to share
it with others, in the hope that it may be helpful in some
measure.
William James once said that he had many possible selves,
many different identities, he would like to fulfill. That is
probably the case with all of us. He wrote that he'd like to be
"both handsome and fat and well-dressed, and a great athlete,
and make a million a year, be a wit, a bon-vivant, a lady-
killer, as well as a philosopher; a philanthropist, statesman,
warrior, an African explorer, as well as a 'tone-poet' and
saint. But," he added, "the thing is simply impossible."
Then he went on to speak of the fact that every man and
woman, among the several selves that he or she might be, at
some point has to decide which
be the deepest, the
self will

truest one. For example, in the minister there may be still

the latent Arctic explorer. In order to keep the one from
causing frustration and unhappiness because it cannot be
realized, and to keep the primary one faithful to its duty and
commitments, there has to be some final decision. We must
"pick out the one," says James, "on which to stake [our] sal-

vation." When we do that, from that time on, the fortunes of

this self, whatever it is, are very real. The defeats will be very
real, bringing deep distress or shame, but the victories will
72 Secrets of Self-Mastery

bring the richest happiness and fulfillment to offset the de-

feats.

What happens to some of us is that our realest self, po-

tentially, gets lost or is forced into a mold of somebody else's
choice. Regardless of the causes or the blame, this self, facing
ifficulties at every turn, is held back and repressed.
I was that way with Zaccheus. He was a business
think it

man— a successful one. He bore the title, "Chief among the

publicans," which suggests that he probably had immediate
communication with the bureau of collections at Rome.
Jericho was the center of a profitable balsam trade at this
period of history. Quite likely, Zaccheus was the first tax offi-
cer, with a number of collectors under him, responsible for
paying to Rome the required sum levied on the district of
Jericho. Such a job was not one calculated to win friends.
The chief collector had to be tough. If he was honorable, as
I believe Zaccheus sincerely intended to be, he had to guard
against bribery and overcharging and extortion among his
subordinates. On the other hand, he had to be strict in col-
lecting the payments, which many people found difficult to
meet. The position was one that made it possible for a man
to become wealthy, and Zaccheus took advantage of the op-
portunity.
But that wasn't the most significant thing about him. Zac-
cheus was basically and potentially what everyone wants to
be: a sensitive human being, desiring to be helpful and a
man of good will toward his fellow men. He wanted both to
give and to receive respect and affection. He had within him-
self an ideal self that he longed to be, outgoing and selfless
and generous.
But the tax-collecting business seemed to force him more
and more into another, unpleasant kind of self, where he was
forced to be close-mouthed, hard-handed, thinking of himself
first and last. It was that man who climbed the sycamore tree
to see Jesus.
Mastery through Our Ideal Self 73

Jesus came. I think the decisive thing that happened to

Zaccheus was that he saw again the image of his best self.
When Jesus showed him confidence and
Zaccheus sud- love,
denly found the fortitude and courage to "This is the me say,
that I want to be," and to do something about it. He vowed,
"I'm going to give half my goods to the poor and if I've
wronged anyone, I will pay him back fourfold."

That ancient but ever-new Bible story emphasizes that

there cannot be deep contentment and full mastery until we
act in accord with our best selves. In Mika Waltari's book,
The Egyptian, the physician Sinuhe, a follower of the religion
of Aton, returned, after a long absence, to his native soil and
sought out an acquaintance by the name of Kaptah. This
friend, a man who has adjusted completely to the world, said
to the physician, "Nothing in the world is perfect. The crust
of every loaf is burned, every fruit has its worm . . . For this
reason there no perfect justice; even good deeds have evil
is

consequences, and the best motives may lead to death and

defeat . .
."

Then he added, "Look at me, my lord Sinuhe! I am con-

tent with my mean lot and grow fat in harmony with gods
and men Take life quietly; it is not your fault that the
. . .

world is as it is that has ever been so and ever will!"

. . .

His friend Sinuhe reluctantly, sadly agreed. "Be it as you

say," he replied. "I will ply my trade, and as a recreation I
will also start some collection as you have counseled me."
The next day he received many lavish gifts from Kaptah.
But Sinuhe mused at their reception and at a hunger they
did not fill: "He sent me munificent presents, which secured
for me such comfort and plenty that nothing would have
been wanting my
if I could have been happy."
to happiness,
For that many, there can be no happiness, no
man, as for

inner glow that comes with the sense of knowing what is

74 Secrets of Self-Mastery

right, what is best for him, when he was overwhelmed by an

alien society! To take Kaptah's advice was to compromise, to
adjust and forget his religion, to take things as they were—
this but created shame and hurt.
The longer I live, the surer I am that man is inwardly
stamped with an image of the ideal of what he ought to be
and is capable of becoming. Outward events and appearances
and actions do not necessarily destroy that ideal self. To deny
it, ignore it, try to forget it, to act in opposition to its claims,
is to have no anchor, no roots, to bobble and be without
purpose, losing the chance to master life fully.

There is a beautiful conversation from the Dialogues of

Mortality, which reads as follows:

"The sheening of that strange bright city on the hill, barred

by itshigh gates ..."
"Barred from all, Phrastes?"
"From all, Eroton, who do not desire to enter it more
strongly than they desire all other cities."
"Then it is barred indeed, and most men must let it go."
"Those who have once desired it cannot let it go, for its light
flickers always on the roads they tread, to plague them like
marsh fires. Even though they flee from it it may drag them
towards it as a magnet drags steel, and though they may never
enter its gates, its light will burn them with fire, for that is its
nature."
"Who then were the builders of this dangerous city?"
"Gods and men, Eroton; men seeking after gods, and gods
who seek after men. Does it not appear to you that such a
fabric, part artifact and part deifact, reared out of divine inti-
mations and demands, and out of the mortal longings and
imaginings that climb to meet these, must perpetually haunt
the minds of men, wielding over them a strange, wild power,
intermittent indeed, but without end? So, anyhow, it has al-
ways proved."

Yes, there is and perpetual haunting of the per-

a strange
son each of us was meant to be, at our best. And there's no
Mastery through Our Ideal Self 75

joy or peace until our daily acts are aligned harmoniously

with it.

To do this, choices must continually be made. David

Seabury in his book, The Art of Selfishness, pointed out that
there is a good selfishness and there is an evil selfishness.
There are compelling forces that can make for evil selfishness
and those that can make for good selfishness. It's up to us to
evaluate and then decide between them. For instance, there
is the compelling force to withdraw. This, Dr. Seabury says,
can be an evil side of selfishness. But its opposite is good: out-
goingness. Intolerance is evil, tolerance and understanding
good. You have the choice to make with every human being
—whether it be the milkman or your mate, the janitor or
your boss.
To achieve mastery in life, we must start, hour by hour,
day by day, to evaluate on one side of the ledger or the other
our actions in life's situations. Each time we are able to place
our thoughts and behavior on the credit side, we bring more
fully into existence the person who is our ideal within.
Occasionally I have time only for a hurried sandwich at a
local drug store. One of the clerks is especially courteous,
cheerful, and kind; his warm hello and pleasant chitchat are
as nourishing to the spirit as the food is to the body. When I

ask for extra mayonnaise or another glass of water, there's

always prompt service, a smile, and "It's a pleasure to serve
you."
Once I said to him, "I don't come in here often, but when-
everI do I'm always impressed with your pleasant attitude

and thoughtful service. I'm grateful for it. I want you to

know been helpful to me, as I'm sure it is to many others.
it's

I'd like to ask, ifyou wouldn't mind, two questions. First,

are you this way day in and day out?"
He smiled as he kept an eye on possible needs of other
lunchers to the right and left. "Not always. But I keep trying.
76 Secrets of Self-Mastery

I figure most everybody is nice. The only way to act is so

they'll feel you really believe that. Now and again a customer
is disappointing. But I say to myself: 'Most aren't like that.'
And it's true, they aren't."
"Well, from what I've seen, you have a good batting aver-
age. The other question is this, what helps you most to keep
up your good spirits?"
"Don't know, other than the thought that life's too short
to messit up with meanness and irritation. I try to remember

what my dad told me: 'Son, you can be a stinker, or you can
be something better.' Guess that's pretty much it: I try to be
better."
If we give in to the lesser, meaner self, we not only add to
the negative side of life for others. We deny ourselves a
precious ingredient to good living: a feeling of self-esteem.
We may not be able to control the weather or setbacks and
troubles that occur in the course of a day. But we can do
something about controlling ourselves. If nothing more,we
will have at any day's end the second essential ingredient:
self-respect.

We must admit the fact that our best intentions don't

always succeed. You and I can we can create the frame-
try,

work and be willing to strive— but still we falter, we fail, we

sin. Louis Mumford defined sin as a defiance of what a man
knows be best. Sin isn't merely breaking rules that are es-
to
tablished by the community, nor is it only deviation from the
code of mores of a group. It is defying, not living by, what we
inwardly know to be best. The discouraging but stubborn
fact is that, in spite of our highest intentions, we do just that.
We all find that in trying to develop our best self, the
lesser selves get in the way. I recall the incident told about
Toscanini,who was unable to get the proper tone he wanted
from one of the men in the orchestra. He raged bitterly at
the man until his anger was spent. Later, other musicians
Mastery through Our Ideal Self 77

told Toscanini that he was unduly severe with the man, who
was a good musician and a man of integrity and character. At
the next rehearsal, so the story goes, Toscanini apologized,
saying he was sorry for losing his temper. But, as he talked,
the memory of the incident rose again in his mind and he
grew irritated. Remembering how he had struggled to bring
to life that musical ideal, he shouted, "The trouble is God
tells me how, but you, you, get in His way."
We often feel the urge to try our wings, but laziness or
little setbacks stymie us. We give up, settle down comfortably
again. At such times we know what's right, we know what our
best self ought to be and could be— God tells us— but our
lesser selves bog us down.

I have spoken little about the large goals, which in-

volve the well-being of mankind. But I suggest now that iden-

tifying with some greater cause is an effective method to
counteract laziness, or selfishness, or lack of purpose in life.

You are in business. Why? For what purpose? You are a

homemaker or a grandmother. Again, what is your broader
purpose, the goal for which you are working?
If your answers are merely "To make a living, to achieve
success, torun an ordered home, to raise my children," you
are missing out on some of the greatest satisfactions and
achievements that man can know.
There is a definite and ever-present need to be aligned
with purposes above and beyond ourselves. Be a businessman
to increase the prosperity of mankind, or a mother who
through her life and life of her children will make this a
more peaceful world tomorrow than it is today, and you will
be rising above the everyday, humdrum activities that never
enrich man's spirit. Awareness of horizons far beyond us, to-
ward which we are moving, will free us of the demons that
shrivel our soul— envy, vanity, self-pride, the thirst for recog-
78 Secrets of Self-Mastery

nition and fame. Once rid of their drainsand demands, we

enter the ranks of those who are one with all mankind.
Such a man is a friend of mine. He is married, father of
three children; an insurance salesman. He and his family live
in a moderate-sized community typical of a thousand scat-
tered across the country. His house modest and no more
is

conspicuous than that of his neighbors'. To all outward

appearance it blends, as does his life, into the quiet and re-
stricted environment. Yet you cannot be with him five min-
utes without feeling a sense of expansiveness. There is a
breadth to his thinking and living. International law and
order have claimed his interest increasingly since college
days. He is an alert student of educational trends and par-
ticipates in wider movements to improve education in Amer-
ica. His work is not just a business or a means of livelihood;

it is a channel for offering practical help and genuine service

to others. Because of his wider concerns he has facets of

mastery that endow his life and affect all who know him.
Jesus offered Zaccheus forgiveness, love, that day as he
passed through Jericho. That isn't an isolated experience that
took place nineteen centuries ago in some little town near the
Dead Sea. It's one that we can have today. Jesus passes
through our lives, and His love, His compassion, and His
trust reach out to enfold and lift us.
Above all else, there is hope and encouragement as we
travel the road to self-mastery, because He gives us, or returns
to us, the picture of our best selves and the assurance and
strength to seek it.
 VI

MASTERING
THE HOBGOBLIN
OF FEAR
 I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.
Psalms 23;^
Our fears do make us traitors.
Shakespeare

Fear is a kind of bell, or gong, which rings the mind into quick
life and avoidance upon the approach of danger. It is the soul's signal
for rallying.
Henry Ward Beecher

I call that mind free which, through confidence in God and in the
power of virtue, has cast off all fear but that of wrong doing, which no
menace or peril can enthrall, which is calm in the midst of tumults, and
possesses itself though all else be lost.
William Ellery Charming

We must be afraid of neither poverty nor exile nor imprisonment;

of fear itself only should we be afraid.
Epictetus

The dove, O
hawk, that has once been wounded by the talons, is

frightened by the least movement of a wing.

Ovid

Unless you put a stop to your insatiate desires and quit yourself
of fears and anxieties, you are but decanting wine for a man in a fever.
Plutarch

It is only the fear of God that can deliver us from the fear of man.
John Witherspoon
 o,n January 18, 1912, Captain Robert Falcon
Scott and four companions reached the South Pole, only
to learn to their dismay that they had been beaten in that
world-shaking discovery by another explorer named Amund-
sen. Already the five had faced devastating hardship. They
turned back. But severe weather conditions, sickness, and in-
sufficient food made their travel extremely slow, bringing
their bitter journey to a halt. Ten months later a search party
found Scott's little tent, housing his body and those of his
companions.
In that tiny speck of tent on that harsh and barren land
the rescuers gathered together notes, letters, diaries that Scott
had written. Among the last things Scott recorded, with
hands so cold that he could barely hold a writing instrument,
were these: "I do not regret this journey. We took risks; we
knew we took them. Therefore we have no cause for com-
plaint.
"Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardi-
hood, endurance, and courage of my companions which
would have stirred the heart of every Englishman."
He left among others, to an old friend, Sir James
a letter,
M. which were these words: "Good-bye. I am not
Barrie, in
at all afraid of the end We are in a desperate state, feet
. . .

frozen, etc. No fuel but it would do your heart good to be

. . .

in our tent, to hear our songs and the cheery conversation."

Doesn't that dauntless spirit—facing some momentous chal-
81
82 Secrets of Self-Mastery

lenge and facing it fearlessly— move and stir you? Doesn't

every heart and mind know that that is the mark of a real
master of life? Few would disagree with Cicero's remark:
"Whoever is brave is a man of great soul."
But I find, as I look at my life and the years of counseling
with people who come to me to discuss their difficulties and
problems, that the fears that really erode us, that keep us on
the down side rather than on top of life, are not those that
come from such portentous situations. Rather, it is more in-
sidious fears that haunt each hour. We may not know of them
or we may try to hide them, but they are there all the time,
lurking in the background every day.
Who among us is constantly weakened by the terror of
cataclysmic events where life and death are ever in the bal-
ance? Few, think— if any at
I all. But many of us are slaves

to more and debilitating fears: a permeating sense of

subtle
inadequacy, a nagging fear of failing, of not measuring up
to expectations; the disquieting sense of guilt, conscious or
unconscious, with its found out.
fear of retribution, of being
Then there are pride and
which we protect and try to
vanity,
cover up even from ourselves but which bring ever-continu-
ous fears: of being rejected, of being unnoticed, of being
thought unimportant. For many another it may be the fear of
age, of being alone, or the fear of pain, or illness, or death.
Whatever it may be, in whatever form it comes, it makes us
cowards, rather than masters.
Katherine Mansfield confesses in her letters, "I believe the
greatest failing of all is to be frightened. When I look back
on my life all my mistakes have been made because I was
afraid."
That failing, with the errors it prompts us to make, pre-
sents each man with some hobsfoblin
\r>
of v fear.

Before we talk about ways of dealing with this prob-

lem, let me point out that there is a positive potential in the
Mastering the Hobgoblin of Fear 83

capacity to feel fear. The heightening of concern, the alert-

ness, the keying up and the concentration of energy, that are

released are to be expected,and can be productive.
Each Easter thousands of choirs and congregations in
Christendom sing Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus." That great
composition, from The Messiah, was written in a miracu-
lously short twenty-odd days. At that time one side of
Handel's body was paralyzed; his creditors were breathing
down his neck; the threat of imprisonment was at his door;
and fear hovered over the instrument where he was at work.
But they served as spurs, making possible his prodigious and
immortal effort. The Messiah might possibly never have been
composed without that stimulus of alarm.
But whereas fear has its place on such occasions in life,
where it may be a healthy prod to help us resist or speed up
our reactions, without control and direction it can be a per-
sisting, insidious destroyer.

It is interesting to note how fear seems to provide an

extraordinary sense of well-being. You and I at times may
even deliberately seek to expose ourselves to certain fearsome
experiences. And we seem to derive physical exhilaration
from them. I think this explains, at least in part, why individ-
uals climb mountains or participate in hazardous automobile
races or queue up in long lines before the roller coaster at
amusement resorts. We may not even realize it, but the fact
seems to be that such activities stimulate the whole endocrine
system in the body and give us a sense of high physical,
mental, and spiritual tone.
But fear can be perverted. Such an exhilaration can be
disastrous if prolonged. Whereas normal fear may lead to effi-
ciency and an extra output of energy, abnormal and persist-
ent fear, buried within the personality, leads to complete
inefficiency. Wisely controlled, fear prepares us to meet emer-
gencies, providing an intelligent caution and sensitiveness
84 Secrets of Self-Mastery

needed to do any job well. But ungoverned anxieties and

phobias (i.e., fears attached to objects that are not in them-
selves dangerous) are damaging, eating away at the health of
body and soul. I believe psychologists, philosophers, and the-
ologians agree that uncontrolled or repressed fear can poison
the mind and weaken the whole character, paralyzing the will
and shackling a free response to life.

Some years ago James L. Mclntyre, lecturer in psychology

in the University of Aberdeen, made a study of the history
of fear. He considered the predominant fears of precivilized
man: lightning and thunder and wild animals, with their
immediacy and intensity. Turning to contemporary man and
his problems, he affirmed that what modern fear has "lost in
intensity and materiality it has gained in extensity, in per-
sistence, in refinement of torture."
We will not argue with him. Living as we do under the
awful threat of an international war that could in a few
hours destroy the civilization that has taken centuries to
build,we breathe the air of fear minute by minute. When
we add to our burden, as so many of us do, the fear of being
misunderstood, of being disliked, of being found out, of be-
ing hurt or rejected or lonely, of making decisions, we break
down the protective devices for well-being.
How can we rid ourselves of these hobgoblins?
Individually, we can do more about it than we may sus-

pect. First, though, it is necessary to get at the roots of our

anxieties by careful, honest self-evaluation.
In the church where I am minister, each parishioner was
sent a memento at a significant time in the history of the
congregation. Reminiscent of the "Communion tokens"
taken by elders of the Church of Scotland prior to the sacra-
ment of the Holy Communion, the bronze memento sent to
our people had on it a phrase from the Bible. In my judg-
ment, it expresses one of the most provocative thoughts in
Mastering the Hobgoblin of Fear 85

the history of human ideas and spiritual adventure. It has

only five words: "Let a man examine himself."
That sentence asks a man to turn inward some of the at-
tention he pours on the "Be honest with yourself,"
outside.
it says. "Examine your motives, your concerns, your fears, in

your own quietude. You can be completely honest. You have

only yourself in this consultation. You
don't have to ration-
alize or try to hide anything. No
one is listening but you.
You don't have to strain to get someone else to understand."
When sincerity and candor are present, such a self-examina-
tion can be healthful, curative.
I understand that many so-called "instinctive reactions" of

animals can be traced to early experiences. Notice how that

old cat jumps whenever a dog barks, even though the cause
for fear is some distance away and the cat is completely safe
from attack. The reason? As a little kitten it wasn't afraid of
dogs. But once a dog barked and jumped at the kitten. It
was a terrifying experience, and now that fear returns when-
ever a dog barks.
Our pussy cat is not able to let reason trace back to her
early experience. She cannot come to the point where she
can say, "This is a great folly I'm engaging in. A waste of
effort."
But man can! I knew a man who was extremely sensitive
and felt that he never was adequately appreciated in his work.
He flitted from one job to another, always leaving with hurt
feelings and bitterness. To others it appeared that his nose
was always out of he did a bit of constructive
joint. Finally
self-examination and concluded that the drive to prove him-
self, the need to be appreciated, the fear of failing, went back

to a misunderstanding of what his father had expected of

him.
A man who had spent his life in supervising the personnel
of a large corporation told me of an employee of his company
who literally became "a new man." He had shown fine po-
86 Secrets of Self-Mastery

tentialities, and his superiors were interested in grooming

him for a job with greater responsibility. But he was timid
and seemed to constantly be holding back. He gave the im-
pression of inner insecurity, even though his competence
could be seen and was acknowledged by all his associates. My
friend reported, "It took more than months to try to help
six
that man get to the source of his trouble. But he did. It was
the result of having an overbearing father. As a lad, he
couldn't please his father, and had let the frustrations of boy-
hood cause anxiety and trouble in his manhood."
That man, able to see, understand, and then laugh at his
fear, gained a confidence and ease commensurate with his
potentialities. He achieved high rank in the war and returned
to his business to become one of its most able leaders.
A woman, outwardly inflexible and stern but inwardly
troubled and tense, was able to trace, by self-examination,
the source of her fear. Although she had tried to keep it
locked tight inside, the cause of her trouble was guilt. A girl-

hood indiscretion had sapped away her best self for years,
hobbling a happy adjustment to life. Fortunately, the per-
spective and wider understanding that comes with maturity
finally permitted her to cleanse herself of this guilt and to
find her way, which in earlier years seemed impossible.
We meet people we oppose. Why? What are the reasons
on edge, to feel anger or resent-
that cause us to bristle, to be
ment? The answer is to be found in: "Let a man examine
himself." Let reason, good judgment, honesty, and forgive-
ness cleanse our own soul before we judge other people. This
is necessary for the conquest of fear and mastery of life.

If an individual, with complete honesty, will examine, for

example, his need to dominate, to appear superior, he very

likely willuncover a fear of being in a subordinate position.
He may he is injuring his marriage, hurting the re-
see that
lationships with his children by continually trying to prove
himself superior. That discovery of truth about himself will
Mastering the Hobgoblin of Fear 87

be hard to accept; it will be distressing. But it can never be

damaging if it leads him from his little world of illusions to
the world as it really is. Indeed, it can open the doors to
humility and self-understanding and so lead to a more or-
ganized, masterful personality. As the neurologist, Abraham
Myerson, said of this catharsis, "There is mental gain, char-
acter growth, as a result."
We consciously and unconsciously play tricks on ourselves.
The fear of being hurt, the sense ofenvy or jealousy may be
a natural part of our being, but an overweening fear of be-
ing hurt, of appearing weak or subordinate, can cause us to
be completely dishonest with ourselves and with others.
Often we will criticize the jealousy or envy or oversensitivity
in other people, trying to pretend that we are not at fault
ourselves. But as we develop the art of examining ourselves,
we will transform the constructive power of fear into useful
purpose. Any step we make in this direction, however falter-

ing and small, is progress toward our goal, for as Lao-tse so

wisely saw, "the journey of a thousand miles begins with one
step."

Many of us have our fears abated and courage

strengthened by association with people who are less fearful
than ourselves.
Charles Darwin, in his Naturalist's Voyage, writes of ob-
serving sheep dogs in South America. He was intrigued by
the fact that these dogs, when separated from the flocks, were
extremely timid. But when with the sheep they were fearless
and ferocious. His explanation was that the dogs, from birth,
had been brought up with sheep. When they were with their
own they had courage, but when alone they had none.
Man reacts in similar fashion. The timid individual can
be buoyed up in the crowd and can present to the world a
courage that is impossible to feel if he is alone. If we keep
our fears to ourselves, trying to hide them from others and
88 Secrets of Self-Mastery

ourselves, we will never discover that our neighbors are prob-

ably facing similar problems and therefore have a sympathy
and appreciation for our anxieties.
I was told about a woman who, years back, had let a really

wasteful fear debilitate her strength. She had such terror of

aging that she brought herself to the brink of a
literally
breakdown. But a neighbor with whom she shared her wor-
ries, together with a thoughtful and sensitive physician, were

able to lead her to see, among other things, that she wasn't
alone. Her fear, they showed her, was a widespread one.
Through their experience and understanding they let her
see, too, that real beauty is more than skin-deep. She redis-
covered the truth that character, a growing wisdom, a capac-
ity forhumor, were more integral to charm and loveliness
than cosmetics and face-lifting. But the most important thing
she learned through and from her friends was that she was
not alone.
Recently I read in a college magazine an article dealing
with the anxieties of young people at that crucial stage in
One of the intelligent observations the writer made was
life.

this,"One thing we must learn early; sharing one's worries

and fears with a trusted friend makes them tolerable." Then
the counselor went on to say, "But pick the person or those
persons carefully. Age is not all important. The important
questions to ask are: Can he be counted on to keep your con-
fidence? Can he be sympathetic without himself sharing your
fear-ridden perspective? Does he really try to understand
what life seems like to you?" People of all ages should re-
member this.

Janet Whitney has written of the visit made by Elizabeth

Guerney Fry to a gloomy woman's yard at Newgate Prison
on a cold January day in 1817.
The turnkeys on the outside were desperately afraid to
enter the yard. They warned Elizabeth Fry that the women
inside would scratch and claw at her and tear her clothes off.
Mastering the Hobgoblin of Fear 89

With the quiet authority that comes from fearlessness she

replied, "I am going in—and alone. I thank you for your
kind intentions, but you are not to come with me." The
turnkeys reluctantly opened the door and Elizabeth Fry
passed through and walked among these women, who had
been reduced to crime and filth and despair. Embittered and
angered against life, they usually fought any and all who
entered. But they did not do so now.
She talked to the prisoners about motherhood and asked
them to tell her of the injustices they suffered. She began to
light some lamps of hope as she talked with them of a subject
they no longer discussed: the business of making plans for a
better future. The Whitney, in describing Eliz-
writer, Janet
abeth Fry's departure, "She left behind her an inhabi-
says,

tant very strange to Newgate, one usually as much abandoned

at its doors as at the very gate of hell, that revivifying spirit
of human vitality called Hope."
We must try to offer hope to each other through contact
and the sharing of human travail.

Association with others sometimes reveals that our

fears are really picayune in comparison to the burdens that
others have met and are shouldering. We can see in them
the ability to go ahead, with a growing courage, in spite of
anxieties. If others can do it, we can too!
It is reported that Edmund Burke once said, "Never de-
spair, but if you do, work on in despair." There are many
people who never really rid themselves of their fears or anx-
iety, but they have, as can we, a persistence that makes them

stick to their guns in spite of all odds. Knowing them can

help us to master our fate.

I shall always remember the influence of a friend who was

involved in what might have been a serious highway acci-
dent. drove by just as the accident occurred, and pulled up
I

off the road in front of the damaged cars.

9° Secrets of Self-Mastery

There was an electrifying fear in the atmosphere. Perhaps

people were injured. Passing cars might crash into the dam-
aged ones. Gasoline from the smashed vehicles ran over the
traffic lanes. What if a lighted cigarette were thrown onto
the road?
Among the individuals in the accident were several women
and children and we could see the panic in their eyes and
voices and tense bodies. But my friend, who had been driving
one of the cars involved, walked slowly, spoke quietly. By
no gesture did he add to anyone's anxiety. Rather the con-
trary.
Later I him how he had managed to present such
asked
quiet and calm front. His response was, "What is, is! I have
nurtured in my mind for years the idea of Jesus that we
don't grow an inch by anxiety. That thought was with me
during the accident. It's with me now." With such courage,
peace, resolution, we can handle any situation and teach
others to do so.

In the dark days of February, 1942, Lord Beaverbrook

quoted to Mr. Winston Churchill from a speech recorded
in the writings of Thucydides: "Open no more negotiations
with Sparta. Show them plainly that you are not crushed by
your present affliction. They who face calamity without winc-
ing, and who offer the most energetic resistance, these, be
they states or individuals, are the truest heroes." That state-
ment, made centuries before, imparted stanch resolution to
Englishmen in the 20th century a.d. Wherever there is con-
tact with constructive self-mastery, there always is construc-
tive power.

One of the reasons the Church persists is that we are

strengthened just in our coming together. We come, on the
Sabbath day, each of us faulty, subject to terror and tempta-
tion. None of us is able to stand up and say, "I'm perfect."
Quite the opposite. We are there, needing, seeking, some
Mastering the Hobgoblin of Fear 91

higher level of peace within ourselves, with our fellows, and

with eternity. We can't sing together or try to pray together
and know each other without a comfort and an assurance
and a quieting of our anxieties. The ultimate source of these
is in a growing understanding of and faith in God. As Epic-

tetus, the philosopher who was a slave, said: "I am content

with that which happens; for I think that what God chooses
is better than what I choose."

This philosophy founded on a conviction that the heart

is

of creation has more knowledge of the ordering of life than

any individual can ever have.
In my judgment one of the ways that we, like Epictetus,
can achieve this freedom from the bondage of fear is by a
deepening understanding of the nature of God, which re-
veals His compassion, good will, love; and inspires us to
trust, have courage, be kind. To grow in this faith is to let

more and more of love into our thinking, into our being,
and free ourselves of the shackles of anxiety. The Bible puts
it truly, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love caste th out
fear."
I think that much more in the
we can and should do so
way of developing a deep good will as we face the conflict
in the international scene today. So many of the chasms be-
tween the East and the West exist because of fear, which in
turn produces faulty actions in relationships and negotia-
tions. One of the most constructive ways we can and must
make progress is through a change of attitude, a change of
conviction, growing out of the knowledge that we are all a
part of one human family. We must all find the faith that the
world and all our lives are subject to a Providence which
will claim all things in eternity. Each of us must say, "I will

fear no evil," not because of my little achievements on the

road to self-mastery, nor because of the support and insight
gained from my fellow men, helpful as they have been. "I
will fear no evil" says the exalted 23rd Psalm, "for thou art
92 Secrets of Self-Mastery

with me." This faith will sweeten and clear the waters of life.

Recently, in restudying the first chapter of Genesis, I was

struck anew by the nobility of that epic concept of creation,
which exultantly proclaims, "In the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth."
One idea particularly touched me with its vitality. As the
crown of His creative work, God made man in His own
image. Man, as the highest and final order of the creative
process, was made lord over all creation, over the creatures
that flew in the air, the fish that swam in the sea, the creeping
things and animals that inhabited the earth, the trees and
grasses and herbs. He was not created to be a slave. He was
to be God's regent here on the earth, to walk with a confi-
dent and kingly tread. We should never forget God's intent
for us to let it dwell deep in our consciousness, giving us a
surer sense that life has meaning, that we have a purpose.
In the growth of such a conviction we will begin to feel a
harmony with all of creation, with all that happens. In time,
possessing an invincible power, we shall overcome and cast
out all fear.
 VII

MEASURING UP
TO THE STANDARD
OF GOODNESS
 O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: because his mercy
endureth forever.
Psalms 118:1

... do good to them that hate you That ye may be children of

. . .

your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil
and on the good.
Matthew 5:44, 45

Goodness I call the habit, and the goodness of nature the inclina-
tion. This of all the virtues and dignities of the mind, is the greatest,
. . . without it man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing.
Francis Bacon

Heaven prepares good men with crosses; but no ill can happen to a
good man.
Ben Jonson

A real man is he whose goodness is a part of himself.

Mencius

Good, the more communicated, the more abundant grows.

Milton

Doing good is the only certainly happy action of a man's life.

Sir P. Sidney
Howe'er seems to me,
it be, it

'Tis only noble tobe good,

Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.
Tennyson

Real goodness does not attach itself merely to this life; it points to
another world.
Daniel Webster
 I Eden, John Steinbeck writes, "I be-
_n East of
lieve that there one story in the world and only one
is . . .

Human beings are caught— in their lives, in their hungers

and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kind-
ness and generosity too— in a net of good and evil. ... A man,
after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will
have left only the hard, clean question: was it good or was
it evil? Have I done well, or ill?
"We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built

on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil.

And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while

good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh
young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the
world is."

Indeed, there is continuing power to goodness. I've never

been able to completely agree with Shakespeare in his con-
tention that "The evil that men do lives after them; the good
is oft interred with their bones." The reverse, I find, is just

as likely true. How often, in talking, individuals speak of

some act of goodness that occurred years before. Its influence
went deep, still shining recollection.
Remember the story of the lion that never forgot the man
who removed a thorn from his paw and years later spared
his life in the arena? So do acts of goodness imprint them-
selves and live on within us, sometimes coming to our rescue
years later.

95
96 Secrets of Self-Mastery

The word "good" in Anglo-Saxon and Old Saxon was

spelled g-o-d. Obviously, the relationship between "good"
and "God" is very close, for in goodness there is a quality of
divinity. In his search to know the nature of God, man long
ago discovered the truth when he vowed, "God is good . . .

His mercy endureth forever."

Little wonder is it that some

of the most noble mas-
ters of life have been the men who
have expressed or done
the greatest good. Said Demosthenes, "Everything great is
not always good, but all good things are great." Think of the
individuals in the long sweep of history— and those we have
known in the briefer limits of our own personal lives— who
have succeeded most in living worthwhile lives. Have they
not measured very high against the standard of goodness?
A woman who came to me some time ago is typical, I be-
lieve, of all of us. After she had outlined the troubling and
unhappy experiences that had beaten her down, I said to
her, "We've covered rather fully the negative and disturbing
things that have happened to you. Before we have our next
meeting, I'd like you to make a list of the people you've
known who have done you not the worst— which we've talked
about today— but the best."
When I saw her a week later her attitude had changed;
there was a note of self-confidence that hadn't been there
before. She began to tell me first of a playmate when she was
a little girl of four who had given her a doll in a gesture of
love and admiration. Then there was a wonderful aunt and
a sensitive teacher who had encouraged her through the ado-
lescent years with their confidence in her. Next came an old
handy man and a wise clergyman who had given her an un-
expected hand of guidance when the road became especially
rough.
"There have been so many good people I've known," she
said as she left, "I'm so glad to have dug them out of memory.
Measuring Up to the Standard of Goodness 97

There's no better way of putting it than to say I've let them

live again. And for me they make life worth living once
more."
In the Apostle Paul's second letter to Timothy are the
words, "And if a man also strives for mastery, yet is he not
crowned except he strive lawfully." In Paul's thinking the
law was good. was identified with order, consideration,
It

fair play, justice. We can paraphrase his thought, without

doing him an injustice, to have it read, "If a man strives for
high achievement in life, he will truly be crowned if he fol-
lows the path of goodness."

In an extended journey across India of some months

ago, I feltthe profoundly good influence of Gandhi on that
land and people. In the north, atNew Delhi, where his body
was cremated, rich and poor came to do him homage, and
with them I, too, bowed in silent recognition of his great-
ness. Weeks later, at the very southern tip of India, where
the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea, and the Bay of Bengal
mingle their waters, I again mused on his life. Gandhi's ashes
had been scattered on those waves, which, in time, must rip-
ple out and touch the shores of all nations.
Before I addressed an audience in the city of Madurai,
toward the end of my stay in India, I stood outside the audi-
torium, where a statue of Gandhi had been erected; and I
read the inscription at its base: "There is no religion higher
than truth and righteousness." Here was expressed what I
had felt increasingly throughout the length and breadth of
that vast subcontinent. Gandhi was a great man because he
expressed in thought and action the qualities of goodness.
His religion was that of truth and righteousness. In his life
was the merging power of mercy and compassion, and his
own words reveal the strength of his convictions. They show,
too, the foundation on which his character was built.
He wrote, ". . . love is the basis of the search for truth . . .
98 Secrets of Self-Mastery

I am realizing every day that the search for truth is vain un-
less it is founded on love. It is quite proper to resist and
attack a system, but to resist and attack its author is tanta-
mount and attacking oneself. For we are all sub-
to resisting
ject to thesame weakness and are children of one and the
same Father; and as such the divine powers within us are
infinite. To injure a single human being is to injure those
divine powers within us, and thus the harm reaches not only
that one human being, but with him the whole world."
Indeed, a man who thought and wrote like that lived by
truth and love, by humanity.
Our relatively new science of psychology is helpful in
enabling us to see more clearly the closely woven threads of
good and evil. The older science of theology teaches that
evil is fallen or unregenerated good. Psychology has pointed
out that there is no instinct, no primary impulse in man that
has not contributed to the development of the race. We may
say that conceit or avarice appear as wrong, but psychological
studies show wrongs are perversions of instincts
that these
that in purer form can be of benefit to mankind. Evil is the
misplacement of a necessary and basic good impulse. As J.
Arthur Hadfield, the English psychotherapist, expresses it, a
primary impulse is misplaced if it persists beyond its phase,
if it is directed to wrong ends, or if it is attached to wrong
objects.
The charitable and forgiving spirit in the right place, di-
rected to the right end and the right object is magnificent.
In the story of David there is an instance when, after being
unjustly treated by King Saul, he had to flee for his life, and
with a few loyal followers he hid in an isolated cave. Saul
came into the region with his warriors, intent on finding and
destroying David. In his search Saul entered the very cave
where David and his men were hidden. Wearied, the King
lay down and fell asleep. David's followers urged him to kill
Saul. Here was a perfect opportunity to be rid of his enemy.
Measuring Up to the Standard of Goodness 99

Instead of plunging a dagger in Saul's heart, David quietly

cut a portion of cloth from his oppressor's mantle. Later he
showed it to Saul, thereby indicating that he might have
taken the King's life but had spared him.
Where in all literature is there a more noble example of
charitable forgiveness than Jesus? Hanging on the cross in
an agony of pain, having cause for bitterness toward fate and
those who were torturing Him, He yet petitioned, "Father,
forgive them, they know not what they do."
But a charitable disposition toward one's fellow men in
some circumstances may be the opposite of good. The weak-
ened individuals walking this earth who have been pampered
and coddled and sheltered by overly solicitous and forgiving
parents are victims of an intended good gone beyond its
place. Such kindliness does more harm than good. The vio-
lent reaction against such misplaced good will cause the cry:
"Damn your charity, give me justice."

Granting that Steinbeck is right in saying that the

only drama is that of men and women caught in a net of good

and evil, how do we, in the net, achieve more good than evil?
By what means do we leave an imprint for good rather than
for evil on the orbit of life? The first and the last thing I
know is that there needs to be a continual cultivation of good
ideas. We grow in goodness as we think good thoughts, do
good deeds, associate with good people, and search for good-
ness of spirit all our days.
The Bible tells of a man named Joseph of Aramathea who,
when there was no place to lay the lifeless and broken body
of Christ, gave his own tomb. Other than that act, the only
descriptionwe have of the man is this: "And, behold, there
was a man named Joseph, a counsellor; and he was a good
man, and a just." I am sure that there is more than that one
act by which he achieved immortality; there must have been
ioo Secrets of Self-Mastery

a day-by-day pattern of goodness that increased as his spirit

and his thought drew closer to God.
I've had limited experience in gardening, but in my few
attempts I have noticed that, in order for healthy plants to
get a good start, it is necessary to cultivate them regularly.
The weeds have to be systematically pulled out. But once
the plants have a strong start, be they beans or tomatoes
or what-have-you, the shade they create and their increasing
stature are a means of thwarting the weedy growth that
would diminish their healthy life. The plants themselves suf-
focate the destructive elements. Cultivating is still necessary,
but with each hoeing they achieve greater strength and
health.
Some time back was speaking with a friend about the
I

matter of continually feeding one's mind and spirit with

sound and invigorating ideas. She responded by telling me
of a method that worked for her. At the beginning of each
day she sought through prayer to feel what she called "the
vital vibrations" of her life in harmony with God. "If my
creative energy can be placed in keeping with that which is
eternally good," she said, "then the negative, the evil, the
nonproductive and destructive thoughts and actions are elim-
inated. They simply die of starvation. But," she added, "I
have to work at it all the time." Knowing that woman for
years, I saw how her efforts paid off. The goodness she put
into herself bore fruit in a good life.
I recall a man who had been an admirer of Emmet Fox

and who had attended his lectures. He reported that Dr. Fox
advocated time and time again "visiting" each day with God.
No matter what it was called— a moment of meditation or
prayer or anything else— let there be a regular time when
one's soul opened to "the waters" of eternity. The stagnant
pools of negativism, discouragement, bitterness, would be
purified as the vast cleansing of the "living ocean" passed
over them.
Measuring Up to the Standard of Goodness ioi

In whatever way we can best suit our own lives, we should

use this technique for growth in goodness; faithfully begin
each new God; silently
stretch of time, each fresh task, with
say, "My world of which I am a part, my work, all
life, this

are filled with good and potentiality. It was all made by God,
who looked on it all and declared it was good. As I think and
speak and act this day, I will only think and speak and act
in keeping with that which is good."
Daily, hundreds of thousands of people find strength by
reading devotional and inspirational literature. Each indi-
vidual must experiment to find the best way, to cultivate and
nourish his conscious and subconscious being. Most of us
need "a starter" of some kind. It can be just one inspiring
thought, one provocative idea, one beautiful line of poetry
or one constructive phrase. For centuries men and women
have found the Bible the inexhaustible source for such in-
spiration and guidance. Read it until, like Coleridge, you
can say, "It finds me." Or muse over it until, as others put
it, "I find marching orders for the day." Whatever your

"starter," savor it. Apply it to yourself. In the visualization

of the day ahead say to yourself "I will not be thrown by any
setback or opposition. I may not avoid being knocked down.

But it be only for a moment."

will
Not long ago I was in the home of a man I had long ad-
mired. His services and achievements in our nation and
abroad had been recognized through three generations. He
was a man of integrity and dependability, a good man. In his
eightieth year, he was just recovering from a serious illness.
His wife took from the little table at the side of his chair an
old Bible. The worn with much handling and
cover was
cracked with age. Throughout the book pages were marked
dates written in pencil. Some were of the nineteenth century.
"At the age of nineteen my husband went on his first busi-
ness trip to the Orient. This Bible went with him then and
on many subsequent trips around the world." With love and
102 Secrets of Self-Mastery

admiration, as she looked at him, his wife added, "And when

things were hard and temptations perhaps strong, he would
put down the date of the reading of a chapter that had
helped him over the hump." As I looked at that man I saw
a great and good life. As I looked at the old Bible, placed in
my hands, I know I was looking at the source of that great-
ness and goodness.

We begin to see the goodness of life, and become bet-

ter ourselves from the seeing, as we respond constructively
and positively to every situation.
Tolstoi, in Anna Karenina, speaks of the quiet and con-
stant light that is seen on the faces of those who are success-
ful. Of this I am sure: If we will put on our faces the quiet
and steady light that looks at every situation, every event,
every contact with another human being, with the idea that
everything has good propensities and possibilities, we will
find that it is so. We will see that life is good. The glow of
that knowledge will be real.

A cheerful temperament, a dominant, positive mood will

help us find the good life. Brahms found it. He thought well
of everybody. He let children ride on him piggyback; de-
lighted to listen to and lustily applaud the gypsies who
played at the fairs. There was a wonderful quality emanating
from him in every situation, and individuals touched by that
emanation reflected back the same quality.
Both Jews and Christians do a great injustice to their heri-
tage when they force their religion into a dour, repressed,
negative form of expression. Alexander Miller, in his book,
The Renewal of Man, sensitively crystallized the outlook of
the ancient Hebrew. He described it as, "A lip-smacking,
exuberant delight in the ingenious beauty and variety of the
created world; in wine and milk, olive-oil and honey. It is a
world whose paths drop fatness, where the little hills rejoice
Measuring Up to the Standard of Goodness 103

on every [Link] a world," went on Mr. Miller, "has a

place for heroism, but none for aestheticism."
One of the dominant traits of Jesus was just such a positive
delight with all of life. Farmers and publicans, herdsmen and
soldiers, holy men and sinners, lepers and fishermen—all
found Him responsive. A biographer might be inclined to
write only of His defeats. His disciples failed to understand
Him. One was a traitor. The crowds that once hailed Him
as Messiah demanded His crucifixion. Having lived in pov-
erty, he died ignominiously on the cross. But such a plot
would miss completely the power of Jesus. He was never de-
feated. His death became one of mankind's most stirring
symbols of triumph. And the reason? The indestructible
faith He had in life, in God and man. He gave that faith to
others too. The biographer, to truly catch His spirit, must
conclude with His own radiantly affirmative words, "My joy
no man taketh from me."

Wegrow in goodness of character and the good life

when we and pay the price to
are willing to take the time
find the good in even the worst situation.
Some time ago I was talking to one of the most successful
men of our day. In the course of our conversation he made
the statement that the best things that had come to his life
had come out of what, on the surface, had always appeared
to be the worst situations. Intrigued, I asked him to explain
what he meant. He told me of his being fired from a position
early in his career, but that crushing experience gave him the
humility and sensitiveness and determination to be better.
They proved to be tremendous assets when he started another
job.
He told me of a bitter misunderstanding and of unjust
claims made against him by a man he had trusted and had
considered a friend. Business reverses at a later stage in his
career were another setback. Out of every one of the occa-
104 Secrets of Self-Mastery

sions when he seemed to have been beaten down, he discov-

ered positive values that enabled him to stand straighter than
ever before.
He had something of the quality of Jacob when he came
to the brook whose crossing would mark his return to his
native land. All night long he wrestled with an unknown
assailant. He was injured in the struggle. All his life he was
to limp because of the encounter. Yet, as the dawn was break-
ing, he cried, "I will not let thee go except thou bless me."
If we can say that to life, we can find the good in every diffi-

cult situation.
I am not advocating a Pollyanna attitude, which closes its

eyes or glosses over difficulty or pain or sorrow or conflict.

Rather, it's just the reverse. Take off the colored glasses; look
at and grapple with your assailant openly, honestly, realisti-
cally. Wrestle with it until it is transmuted into something
positive. And remember, one of the greatest and most pow-
erful texts in the Bible is: "All things work together for
good to them that love God."

To achieve self-mastery we must face up to our fluc-

tuating moods and try to prevent sharp changes of attitude.

They can be caused by physical weariness or physiological
deficiencies. They can be brought on by overexertion, too
much pressure on our nervous and mental resources. When
the clouds of depression start gathering, we must do some-
thing constructive to dispel them. The mind that can con-
template goodness will be prepared for such emergencies and
provide some safety value for the occasion.
For one person it may be a notebook, built up across the
years, of ideas and quotations that have
been helpful in his
life. For another it may be a refreshing walk or an interlude
of listening to music. One woman told of a method she uses,
which apparently never fails her: "The floor of my laundry
room always needs a cleaning. I keep putting it off. When I
Measuring Up to the Standard of Goodness 105

start getting blue, I make myself go to work scrubbing it up.

When done I have a good feeling inside. I admire the
it's

shiny floor and tell myself that, if I can make myself do that,
there's nothing at all that can lick me." Often some task re-
quiring physical exertion lifts low spirits and sends a bad
mood packing.
Knowing when we need a letting up or a letting down
would save many of us from working halfheartedly, and ir-
ritating ourselves and others. One doctor I know says, "When
I get at a low ebb, I do my patients more good by going away

on a fishing trip than I could possibly do them by barking

at them in my office."
In the Book of Proverbs is a beautiful description of a
worthy woman who was highly honored by her husband. The
chapter describes her as doing him "good and not evil all the
days of her life." The source of her goodness is probably ex-

plained by her many-faceted interests in life. She was a seam-

stress, and organizer. She was interested in business
a planner
and conservation; she cultivated her own character and phi-
losophy and disposition. She was interested in people. Her
horizons were broad, and consideration flowed from her to
the poor and needy. This variety and change of pace surely
made it possible for her to achieve the resourcefulness to
master the bad moods that might otherwise have downed her.
I'm inclined to believe that most men and women culti-
vate varied interests. If one activity won't turn back the
clouds of despair, there are others that will. If the children
are on edge and discouraging, there's always one's coin col-
lection to re-examine, or the piano to which one can turn
for relaxation.
I have always liked the analogy of the little ship that bobs
along on the vast and rolling sea. Water is all around it, un-
known depths are beneath it. But all the water of the world
cannot sink that little ship unless it gets on the inside.
And so it is with our mental attitudes, our spiritual for-
io6 Secrets of Self-Mastery

tifications. Believing in goodness in the world, having the

conviction that our lives are made for good living and good
action, we can build the framework of a seaworthy ship of
life. And then all the turbulent water through which we may
pass can do us no harm because we are prepared and pro-
tected—we will not let it get on the inside.
We should touch on the matter of the seemingly undesir-
able things that could happen to us which cause us trouble
and trembling at the very thought of them. There is death.
There is the thought of being handicapped. There is the
possibility that the individual to whom our life is most
deeply tied may be taken from us. Such events, as we envision
them, are certainly not good.
No good, happy life— none that is free— is lived with such
a sword always hanging over it, casting its ominous shadow
on the present moment. Neither is there satisfaction in never
facing these matters at all. They must be dealt with, and
then be done with.
There are many ways that man has sought and applied,
with varying degrees of success, to be rid of the sense of
doom. Since it should not be totally excluded from conscious-
ness, or ignored, only the positive approaches can be consid-
ered. Think of the sad and ominous possibilities as tares that
grow amid the good grain. Looking at life this way, man can
say to himself, "If I must encounter you, I will do so without
defeat. I will take more from you than you will take from
me." Such admirable spirit was revealed by a woman of re-
finement and privilege who said, "If worse comes to the
worst, I shall still be needed. There will be a place for me.
There will always be something I can do. At the very least,
I can minister to the sick in hospitals."

But for larger numbers of people there has been a surer

way, tested and tried across the centuries. It is to live with
the great thought that man need fear no evil for God is with
him. This is the ultimate way to win victory over the possi-
Measuring Up to the Standard of Goodness 107

bility of evil. It may be helpful to think of perfect good when

we use the word "God." There is nothing that can overcome
us if we say, in our hearts and the deepest depths of our
minds, "No evil can cause me consternation . . . for thou art
with me."
The individual who lives by that conviction lives more
and more the good life. More and more the masterful life

becomes his.
 VIII

MASTERING
THE YES AND NO
DEPARTMENT
 But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay; for whatsoever
is more than these cometh of evil.
Matthew 5:37

Be not either a man of many words; or busy about too many things.
Marcus Aurelius

Firmness, both in sufferance and exertion, is a character which I

would wish to possess. I have always despised the whining yelp of com-
plaint and the cowardly, feeble resolve.
Robert Burns

Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop
thinking and go in.
Andrew Jackson

Decide not rashly. The made

decision
Can never be recalled. The Gods implore not,
Plead not, solicit not; they only offer
Choice and occasion, which once being passed
Return no more.
Longfellow

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side.
Lowell

Here I stand; I can do no otherwise. God help me. Amen.

Martin Luther

Men must decide on what they will not do, and then they are able
to act with vigor in what they ought to do.
Mencius

There is no mistake; there has been no mistake; and there shall be

no mistake.
The Duke of Wellington
 I,-n 19,32 the famous cartoonist, David Low, pro-
duced a drawing that became one of the most widely circu-
lated cartoons in the world. This was not just because its
message was particularly timely; it was tinged with eternal
truth too.
A little boat labeled "World Money Problem" was seen
rocking amid giant waves that towered over and all around
it. In one end several people were feverishly bailing out
water. A vicious leak had the craft almost half-filled. Those
busy individuals were labeled "Middle Europe." At the other
end three figures representing America, England, and France
were huddled together. Sitting on the sides of the boat, they
were doing their best to stay dry, and looking with only a
touch of concern at the busy bailers. The conversation of
the three made the caption of the cartoon, which read:
"Phew! That's a nasty leak. Thank goodness it's not at our
end of the boat."
The folly of that attitude can be seen by a first grader.
The leak in the boat is everybody's business who is aboard.
Surely there any masterful dealing with life unless there
isn't

is knowledge that all of us are involved with mankind. There

must be more participation than withdrawal, more action

than reaction, more moving forward than retreating back-
ward.
The individuals who do respond, whatever the issue may
be, on the side of justice, humanity, mercy, good will are
111
ii2 Secrets of Self-Mastery

automatically given the tribute of being a master of life.

How often I have seen discussions and judgments and feel-

ings gravitate around and settle about the man who has ex-
pressed himself with clarity on the side of justice. Alan Paton
put it this way, "To stand up for the freedom of others is

one of the marks of those who are free, just as to fail to do

so is one of the marks of those who are ready to be enslaved."
We instinctively sense that. All men react to it and are pulled
toward it as bits of metal to a magnet.
A small religious paper occasionally comes my way from
friends in Czechoslovakia. In the summer of 1957 an article
described the anniversary ceremonies held in commemora-
tion of the terrible destruction of the little village of Lidice.
The paper reprinted a from Albert Schweitzer written
letter
to Professor Hromadka and all who had part in the solemn
occasion. He said that it was important for us to remember
the black inhumanity at Lidice because it might restrain
mankind from repeating such a brutal orgy. Then he added:
"We must take up the struggle against the ideas of inhuman-
ity which we still suffer to exist among us. Humanism is the
basis of civilization, and we must stand on its side."
I have been so imbued with the beauty of the King James

version that I cannot refrain from citing: "Let your com-

munication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay; for whatsoever is more
than these cometh of evil."
What Jesus meant was this: Let it be known where you
stand and then stand there. Stop hedging. Avoid long and
cloudy explanations. Don't make involved and impressive
promises. Watch the business of swearing, crossing your
heart, and taking oaths. Be of clear integrity. Let it be yes
or no! And then stick to it.

One of the reasons that our personal and corporate life is

often ineffectual is simply because we fail to take the Master's

counsel. Liston Pope of Yale University has made many in-
cisive criticisms of our times. In an address some time back
Mastering the Yes and No Department 113

he characterized us as being an era of conflicting affirmation

and negation. We are, he said, living "Jekyll-and-Hyde lives

in a schizoid world."
Let some basic questions be asked.
Do you believe in the United Nations? Likely the answer
will be confusing: Yes—but no when it comes to merging
with other nations some of our national sovereignty in the
interests of world organization.
Are you committed But
to the principle of equality? Yes!
also no when it comes our minority groups.
to certain of
What of the proposition that man is created for and ca-
pable of goodness? Are you for or against? Yes, I'm for it. But
not when I see the chicanery and the selfishness in some men.
Are you at peace? Are you for peace in the world? And
again our answer is a complex and an involved potpourri that
comes out saying both yes and no.
Of course, there is wisdom and realism in seeing that there
are infinite shades between the black and the white. But
what Jesus tells us is this: "Let it be known what you're
looking for. Let it be clear, when you do find the distinction,
where you're going to stand, and finally when the paths open
up, which way you will follow!"

It is also proper, in preparing for mastery in this area,

to recognize the danger of ill-advised or quick judgments.
Those who have often made fully formed and worthy con-
tributions to life out of their own decisiveness and convic-
tions have often been individuals of great capacity for
thought and considered judgment. William of Orange,
known as "The Silent One," was such a man. Thinking of
him and similar individuals led Carlyle to exclaim, "In thy
own mean perplexities, do thou thyself but hold thy tongue
for one day; on the morrow, how much clearer are thy pur-
poses and duties; what wreck and rubbish have those mute
workmen within thee swept away." Giving consideration to
H4 Secrets of Self-Mastery

an important matter is essential; but it is equal importance,

at least, to come to a decision and take a firm stand. One can
make evaluations too quickly on the one hand, and on the
other wander too long in a fog of uncertainty.
I think important to also see that it is no great sin to
it is

change your position or modify your convictions, if you are

led to a higher position or a sounder conviction. The wisdom
that affirms, "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,"
should comfort you if time and circumstance seem to demand
a change of course. But here again the important thing is to
set a course rather than merely drift. It is impossible to go
in all directions at once, and disastrous to go in no direction
at all.

There is merit in our seeing the value of definiteness, of

decisiveness in the make-up and development of our own
character as well as appreciating it in other people. On ship-
board for the first time some years ago,
I was impressed with

the lifeboat drill. Prior to setting sail I had been reading of

major catastrophes at sea. The awful sense of what might
occur in a hurricane or a wreck at sea was upon me. During
the lifeboat drill I was comforted by the definiteness of the
arrangements for the passengers' safety. Had the instructions
been merely casual statements that there were lifeboats on
the ship and also adequate life preservers and rafts, I would
have been quite nervous and anxious. But being informed
as to the precise place and lifeboats the passengers were as-

signed to in the event of danger and receiving instructions

about the location of life jackets provided a sense of security
and order.
We who are parents constantly see the need for precise-
ness, for definiteness, for clarity of thought, in the rearing
of our children. Itis by showing them choices in precise

by stimulating their own development in

rules for conduct,
the yes and no department, that their outward and inner
security develops.
Mastering the Yes and No Department 115

A friend of mine, recounting his schooling during boy-

hood and young adulthood, recalled one fourth-grade teacher
who stood out above all the rest. "There was no nonsense
about her. She was definite. You always knew where you
stood. If you did mediocre work, she let you know it and
know it promptly." He went on to tell how that woman's
influence was one of the major ones in his whole life. The
setting up of standards, the clear-cut requirements, the defi-
nite expectations which she put before him and the other
pupils were powerful factors in building character.

But we can surely add, when we consider this business

of decisiveness for us moderns, that we all need help because
we are pulled in so many different directions. We are like
the three-year-old with her mask and Hallowe'en costume on
who looked at herself in the mirror and exclaimed, "Mommy,
I don't know which is me." Many claims are put on us as

citizens, as parents, as church members, as participants in a

profession or a business. We are always facing situations
where it ishard to know whether to say yes or no. Ques-
so
tions constantly plague us: Is it a time to make a change?
Should I modify my point of view or should I retain what
I've gone by so far? In this particular situation shall I speak
or shall I keep quiet? How will I serve the highest purpose
in the involved situation I now
by discretion or bold-
face,
ness? How can I keep the weights of social responsibility and
the filling of my personal needs in a wholesome and intelli-
gent balance?
Another cartoonist, Robert Osborn, in a recent publica-
tion, Osborn on Leisure, portrays all too vividly the pressured
dilemmas of modern man. One sketch shows the modern
housewife, like a puppet, with strings attached at every joint
and extremity, including her nose. She is being pulled in all
directions. She, as does her male counterpart, needs guidance
on the question of what to hold on to and what to let go.
n6 Secrets of Self-Mastery

But you wouldn't expect me, and I would be a fool to at-

tempt, to give you some detailed blueprint that would pro-
pose to fit the situation of each individual. Each of us must
work out our own destiny in terms of our particular abil-
ities, inclinations, temperaments. The balancing of the scales
between yeas and nays will differ for every person; but we
must have that balance.
Stephen F. Bayne, Jr., Episcopal Bishop of Olympia, in an
excellent speech some time ago stated, "All true teaching
aims to teach mankind how to take sides." Some people shy
off from revealing where they stand because they claim they
may hurt someone else's feelings. That is a point to be con-
sidered. Tolerance, sympathy, and appreciation for the feel-
ings and opinions of others are certainly important factors.
Since people can feel a sense of rejection if we too vigorously
or violently express our viewpoint and seemingly denounce,
exclude, or condemn theirs, special attention should be given
to our spirit and attitude as we take our stand.
It has been my observation that if sensitivity and consid-
eration are present, there is no position that cannot be taken
with dignity. And taken or given in thatany stand can
spirit,

earn the respect of even those who may seem most opposed
to it. One of the most enriching qualities of conversation and
human contact comes out of differing points of view. Con-
trariwise, one of the most deadening experiences in life is
participation in a group where there is a lack of decisiveness.
Man needs the vitality, life, strength that comes when he can
say "Yes" or "No" and mean it.
And certainly this is the way to growth. Self-mastery de-
pends on being able to get off the fence and make decisions,
whether they are of a personal nature or have social, politi-
cal, or business implications.

Some of us overextend ourselves because we don't

know how to say "No," when in reality there is more merit
Mastering the Yes and No Department 117

in being able to say "No" at the right time. We should be

able to make that distinction and put it to best advantage.
An able business leader, who is of valuable service not only
to his particular field but to the civic interests of this country
and the world, once told me that from time to time he re-
quested his secretary to bring in a little typewritten card for
him to read at the beginning of the day. It had these words
on it: "Have you asked God to help you keep your big mouth
shut today?"
There is whimsy and charm in that question, and there
is wisdom in knowing that one doesn't have strength unless
it is conserved. A channeling of our capabilities is necessary
in order to achieve our best. And one way
do so is to cur-
to
tail our energy, expend it on the right things, and say a sim-

ple "No" to distracting claims and demands.

Olgivanna Lloyd Wright, in her book, The Struggle
Within, has a suggestion for maintaining a healthy balance
in our busy modern age: "When we find ourselves caught in
this rush from one duty to another, we can well remember
the enervating state that this very experience caused us in
Remembering this, we induce complete inner relaxa-
the past.
tion,during which time our poise is regained. We then eval-
uate calmly what we have been doing. In full consciousness
we can leave it at that point, reassuring ourselves that in a
more measured tempo at the proper time, we will again at-

tend to our duties without destroying ourselves in fulfilling

them. It is significant to learn how to make these conscious
pauses."
A technique such as this, adapted to our own lives, may
give us the wisdom to see and the strength to say no to un-
necessary and unworthy expenditures of time and effort.
England's fine literary figure and politician-essayist,
Thomas Macaulay must have been a rarely gifted man. If
you read his biography you will learn that before he was
eight years old he had written a Compendium of Universal
n8 Secrets of Self-Mastery

History. His mark as a literary figure was set high with the
publication of an essay on Milton which appeared in the
Edinburgh Review. Led to enter politics, he was elected to
the House of Commons and made his first major speech for
a most humane cause: removing the restrictions against Jews
in England. Portions of the speech, said Sir Robert Peel,
"were as beautiful as anything I have heard or read." Peel
was saying what was on everyone's lips.
One essay and Macaulay was a towering figure in the liter-
ary world. One speech and all London was singing his praises
as an orator. Appeals flooded in to write and speak on other
topics, to champion other causes. But Macaulay was silent
for a long time. Said Elbert Hubbard of him, "He practised
self-restraintand knew better than to dilute his fame by
holding argument with small men on little topics."
Self-restraint and self-mastery require that we say "No" to
self-indulgence. "Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that
leadeth unto we decide that a complacent, a pleasure-
life." If

seeking life is not what we want, we must deal sternly with

the elements that complicate our life and drain and disperse
our resources.

But what of our "Yes"? Are there any guides here?

There are some suggested ones. The most obvious one, of
course, is that, within the limits of our physical and psychic
ability and our personal responsibilities, we can't go wrong
in saying "Yes" to any opportunity to perform a real service
to mankind.
One of the most provocative and one of the truest things
ever said is: "He that is greatest among you shall be servant
This seems a total paradox, running in opposition to
of all."
our deep and tenacious instincts. But it is true, says Jesus,
and the truth of history is on His side, affirming that you and
I and anybody else hasn't a chance in a billion of being re-
membered and thought worth while after a century has
Mastering the Yes and No Department 119

passed unless we try to do something in the category of "serv-

ants of all."
We should say "Yes" to a vision of life that pushes out be-
yond the horizon of just making a living for ourselves and
providing material comforts for our families.
Frederick William Fair wrote of Marcus Aurelius that he
was "the undisputed lord of the Roman world. He was seated
on the and most splendid eminence which is possible
dizziest
for human grandeur to obtain. But this imperial elevation
kindled no glow or pride or self-satisfaction in his meek and
chastened nature. He regarded himself as being in fact the
servant of all."
Say "Yes" to any purpose, any cause, that would enrich and
serve mankind.
To perform life's tasks, we must constantly replenish our
reservoirs of inner strength in order to maintain a steady
flow of power. But if, in the performance of our duty, we
completely exhaust ourselves and become drained and empty,
we won't be able to meet our responsibilities. Therefore, we
must learn how to say "Yes" to our duties, while saying "No"
to oversolicitude in fulfilling them.
That was the fault of Martha in the New Testament. Hers
was the duty of fixing the evening meal. To it she said, "Yea."
But she poured herself too exhaustively into her duty,
thereby missing one of the sweetest opportunities of being
fed spiritually by the Master.
In too much single-mindedness there is destruction to the
self. What does it profit a man if he piles up victories won,

duties fulfilled, but has a vacuum where his soul should bet'
Say "Yes" to the practice of doing one thing at a time. To
procrastinate, to say "Yes and no, but I'll do it later," places
great strain on our abilities and energies. It makes what could
be done today an increasingly heavy burden for tomorrow,
and often poisons a sense of accomplishment with a feeling
of guilt.
120 Secrets of Self-Mastery

Our life is always crowded, and we only add to the con-

fusion when everything we have to do or could do is opened

like a mail sack and dumped, willy-nilly, on the table. Said
Goethe Jane Carlyle during a very troubled period for
to
her: "Do the thing at hand and the next will reveal itself in
due course." There is a natural order to things if we will but
proceed step by step in doing them.
Last but not least, we make no mistake in saying "Yes" to
a growing faith that this is God's world, that we are His chil-
dren, and that thereis a purpose in life. Then add to that

purpose the determination to do what we believe is God's

will.
Edwin Markham in one of his poems wrote these words as
coming from God Himself:
I will leave man to make the fateful guess,
Will leave him torn between the No and Yes;
Leave him in tragic loneliness to choose,
With all in life to win and all to lose.

Is that true? Up to a certain point, yes. But there's another

facet toman's dilemma of choosing. In the Scriptures it is
written: "I will not leave you alone.I will come unto you."

And Jesus said, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the
end." In making fateful yes-and-no decisions, we become ac-
quainted with one of the most profound experiences in life:
namely, that the God who made us is with us.
The Bible counsels us, as we face life, to choose "whatso-
ever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever
things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things
are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report . .
." If we
follow this advice, we will feel the Eternal Providence that
inspired those words; His guidance will not lead us astray.
 IX

MASTERY
FROM THE MYSTERY
OF INTUITION
 ... it was revealed to him [Simeon] by the Holy Ghost, that he
should not see death, before he had seen the Lord's Christ.
Luke 2:26

a law not found in books, but written on the

This, therefore, is

which we have not learned from man, re-

fleshly tablets of the heart,
ceived or read, but which we have caught up from Nature herself,
sucked in and imbibed; the knowledge of which we were not taught,
but for which we were made; we received it not by education, but by
intuition.
Cicero

The aims andideals that move us are generated through imagina-

tion,but they are not made out of imaginary stuff. They are made out
of the hard stuff of the world of physical and social experience. The
new vision emerges through seeing old things in new relations serving
a new end which the new end aids in creating.
John Dewey

... a kind of enthusiasm or extraordinary emotion of the soul . . .

Dryden

Intuition is the clear conception of the whole at once. It seldom

belongs to man to say without presumption, "I came, I saw, I conquered.
Johann Kaspar Lavater

Imagination is controlling and using the energy of which we are

made. Those who succeed in this have through their partial
access,
energy, to all energy. The thoughts of these men have the divinity of
all energy: they do not die.
John Mase field
 A, elderly woman was telling o£ her town's
-N
favorite son. He was the home-town boy who went off into
the wide world and made good. Said the aged lady, who had
known the man from birth on, "When he was about four-
teen years old, most folks, if asked where he was going to end
up, would have said, 'The penitentiary.'
"He was the most harum-scarum boy in the neighborhood.
If the Sunday school was disrupted, he was the one who was
behind it. He graduated from college by the skin of his
teeth." Then she smiled, "But I always knew he had mighty
good stuff in him and one day we'd all be proud of him."
That woman had what we call an intuitive knowledge, or
assurance, or faith. She "looked upon" that boy and came up
with an evaluation altogether different from that which ob-
vious facts and reasoned thought seemed to suggest. That's
what intuition is. It's a source of knowledge that is based on
an immediate comprehension of some truth. Intuitionalism
opposes the idea that all of our knowledge or understanding
or wisdom is based on observable facts, reasoned judgment,
or intellectual processes.
Its examples are as legion as they are varied in our daily
life. If you play golf, more than once you have heard a player
say, "I just knew
was going to flub that drive," or, "I sensed
I

the minute I started my back swing that the ball would end
up in the pond."
A friend to whom I made this observation replied, "Yes,

123
124 Secrets of Self-Mastery

it's sad but true. However, isn't the reverse also true? Can't
the ball be visualized sailing straight down the fairway? And
occasionally—very occasionally perhaps— doesn't it work that
way? Please say it does, because I'd like to improve my score."
I assured him that it was true, and presented no bill for

the secret. For I have often heard a player say when a game
is over, "I can't explain it fully, but I was as sure as the sun
is in the sky that I'd play well today. I felt right. I knew I'd
win."
But look at other illustrations. Haven't you ever had the
sense of some impending unpleasantness? Haven't you heard,
in family discussions, someone say, "I knew the minute I got
up this morning it was going to be a tough day, and it cer-
tainly worked out that way." Or, "I just felt it in my bones
that that romance wouldn't last." Or someone says, "The
moment I met that man, I knew immediately he'd fit into our
organization," or, "I had the strangest sensation that that
man couldn't be trusted." And someone else says, "The mo-
ment I saw that girl, I knew she was the one for me." So we
express intuitive judgments about experiences and relation-
ships with our fellow men.
This ability in man has a deeper and more significant
aspect. It is not a mere tiddlywinks game of casual signifi-
cance. Intuition, has also played a powerful part in scientific,
aesthetic, moral, and religious discoveries.
One of the great spiritual insights was made by Plato, who
affirmed, toward the end of his life, that the divine element
was not coercive but persuasive. That thought came not from
piling fact on top of fact, not from some process of logic. It
was an inspiration of the mind, an illumination of the soul.
It was what the philosopher Spinoza described as a form of

knowledge that transcends that which is given by reason and

is arrived at by the apprehension of the essence of things.

Observation, evaluation, deduction, had their place, but

Plato grasped or was given that insight in a flash of intuition.
Mastery from the Mystery of Intuition 125

If you want technical language for this endowment, you

can put down the big word "cosmaesthesia." Cosmaesthesia
is the feeling we are all endowed with for the relationship of
things. Itis the intuitive understanding of what's good for

us and a sense of what's bad for us. You and I have a percep-
tion of what will contribute to our well-being. Those who
have sought to analyze and describe this perception affirm
that there is the feeling of the consequences of a reaction.
That awareness of the factors that will determine a particular
conclusion is you are interested, "telaesthesia."
called, in case
You have these endowments: cosmaesthesia, a sense of rela-
tionship, and telaesthesia, a sense of consequences. But
Robert Frost speaks the truth when he says that a full half
of life cannot be reduced to a science. In art and letters, in
religion and poetry there are describable skills, but the touch
that makes art immortal, the spark of genius that illuminates
the ages, cannot be described or defined or evaluated. So it is,
too, with intuition.
As a matter of fact, more knowledge of intuition comes
from a sensitive appreciation of it than from any technical
study. In dissecting it, the vital pulse beat is lost. I have long
loved the lines of Walt Whitman:
When I heard the learn'd astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns
before me;
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide,

and measure them;

When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured
with much applause in the lecture room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

Pristine quiet and wonderment and enjoyment indeed

opened the doors to a better understanding of the firmament.
126 Secrets of Self-Mastery

Old Simeon of the New Testament waited for years in the

temple, his eyes growing increasingly dim he looked for
as
what his heart— not logic or reason— told him God was going
to send into the world. After waiting so long, a carpenter
from Nazareth, with his wife and their first-born son, came
to the temple. Simeon had seen similar families many times.
To most, that father and mother and child looked like the
others who came to the sacred place. There was a simplicity,
a dignity, a devout faith about them. But had not hundreds
of others been the same? Yet old Simeon moved with an un-
accustomed quickness to their side and took the child lov-
ingly in his arms. There was unwonted animation and clarity
in his crackling voice: "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant
depart in peace; according to thy word." Simeon knew that
the answer to the longing and hoping of his people was in
the child held so tenderly in his arms.
That kind of knowing— the intuitive sense that puts things
in place and tells us what is important; the feeling for the
and most precious gifts
essence of things— is one of the rarest
given to man. To be usedit must be developed
fully,
thoughtfully, with care and sensitivity. As we learn to see
relationships of problems, results of actions, the essence of
life's meaning, we will gain in self-mastery.

Keeping our eyes open is a simple but important part

of intuition. We must not become dull or bored or tired.
Simeon would not have had the experience that lighted his
soul with its glow at the very end of his life if he had said
one day, "I'm too old, too tired. I no longer feel keen about
going to the temple and continuing the long search." His
undimmed eagerness, his watching and waiting, enabled him
to perceive what the other observers could not see. The
Scripture says it was "by the spirit." And so it was.
Sir William Rowan Hamilton, who made many significant
discoveries and contributions in the field of mathematics said
Mastery from the Mystery of Intuition 127

that a basic problem for him came to a solution as he "was

walking with Lady Hamilton to Dublin, and came up to
Brougham Bridge." Does that seem inappropriate or impos-
sible? Well, Such a flash of insight does not neces-
it is. not.
sarily depend on where you are or what you are doing. It
comes unheralded, out of nowhere. But, of course, the way
has been prepared. There is an inner awareness, a waiting,
a receptiveness that is able to recognize the flash of truth
when it comes.
An old friend has told me, across the years, of many amaz-
ing and rewarding experiences with individuals. His insights
into the vast and complicated patterns within the family of
man are fascinating and stimulating. Why is it so? He has
cultivated a keen sensitiveness to his fellow men. In a hotel
lobby or on a train he will speak to his neighbor, selecting a
topic that he senses may be of interest. It may be education
or world peace or transportation or the influences on the
stock market. Whatever he has garnered in the way of in-
sights about people has been due to the seeds he has sown.
An ever-increasing awareness enables us to have a moment
of intuition at the most unexpected times. Every experience
becomes a laboratory that may reveal a secret. I don't think
we Americans fully appreciate how broad and deep were the
sensibilities of Lincoln to the problems not only of the nation
but of all people everywhere. We know that on a trip down
the Mississippi, early in his career, he observed the practices
of slavery. He looked, he felt, he evaluated, and insights and
convictions were formed that later were to guide the nation.
A man, before he died a frightful alcoholic death, told me
of his failure to respond to the voice of intuition. Years
earlier, when he was starting to drink heavily, he had a dream
that clearly predicted the tragic end to which he came.
finally

He felt the challenge to give up alcohol, but too long ago had
he abandoned life's challenges and he was too weakened to
heed the warning of his intuition.
128 Secrets of Self-Mastery

Youth is the time to make preparations, to develop alert-

ness, awareness, but it is never too late to learn the technique
of letting your insight guide you and spur you on to better
things. The man or woman who
sensitive and keeps many
is

avenues of life open will make the most of the flash of intui-
tion, when it comes. In turn, intuition comes most freely to
those who have made themselves accessible. Little wonder
that Wagner, always looking for new ideas for operas, caught
the roar and excitement of a storm at sea and then wrote The
Flying Dutchman. Mendelssohn also experienced a similar
sensation while exploring a cave on the Scottish coast. Listen-
ing to the sounds and reverberations of the lapping waters,
he heard and held the inspiration for his Hebrides Overture.

Louis Daguerre, who opened the door to the whole

field of photography, did so, someone might say,because of a
chance insight. It wasn't altogether true. He was convinced
that there was an answer to his problem. It is quite plain that
the persistence that made him try one chemical after another,
hoping to sensitize a glass plate and hold an image, had a
great part in it.

Madame Curie knew that uranium shed light rays but she
could find no reason for it. We could, for effect, emphasize

just thatone luminous moment when a new element was dis-

covered. But we would gloss over the long, hard years of
painstaking work with pitchblende; we would neglect the
patience and perseverance it took to accumulate one vial of
radium no larger than the eraser on a pencil. The epoch-
making advances made by man have demanded insight and
faithand persistence of the individual, just as self-mastery
demands these things of you for successful living.

A change of pace is always important to the conscious

and the subconscious, which need the stimuli of varied ex-
periences and motions and influences to quicken intuition.
Mastery from the Mystery of Intuition 129

The railroad employee who sitson the bench at the station

as well as in his office is seeing his work from a different view-
point, at a different pace, which— if he is observant—will
make him susceptible to fresh ideas that the old routine did
not provide.
I also recommend the practice of finding a time to just be
quiet. It's a suggestion make because it gives us a break in
I

the day's fast pace, which many of us set for ourselves. Just
sit quietly alone for one hour. Be perfectly still. Empty your
mind of all thought. See nothing; hear nothing. Let complete
peace and calm reign. When you go back to your day's occu-
pation, you will feel refreshed, receptive.
Churchgoing is important in our lives because it provides
that needed change of pace for our bodies, our minds, our
spirits. As we enter that sanctuary, we are exposed to all kinds

of stimuli; if we are ready, there are forces that can stir our
imagination, touch our hearts, release our intuition.
Some of my most helpful sermons have come to me when
my imagination was piqued or my mind was stimulated to
wander off seeking some inner moment of truth. And while
in recent years I have been more often in the pulpit than in
the pew, I have never gone to a church service, however poor
the place, and found the doors of perception closed to me.
It has been beautifully said, "Prepare the vessel and the

spirit will descend." Our vessel is prepared as we move about

in different environments and make it receptive to new and
fresh influences.

We could probe this matter of intuition all our life

and still have no scientific formula to describe it. We are

nearer dynamic source when we consider the biblical ref-
its

erences to the Holy Spirit, that active sense of God, moving

in and through us, making us patient, receptive, aware.
John Calvin wrote a comprehensive theology, known as
The Institutes, with tremendous care. Those volumes still
130 Secrets of Self-Mastery

serve as a basic and definitive analysis of doctrine for millions

of Protestants who
are in the Presbyterian and Reformed
tradition. Calvin was a lawyer, and as you read his manu-
script you are impressed by the logic, order, and reason in
his thoughts and writings. Time after time, in a discussion of
a particular aspect of belief, to the determinative element,
he acknowledges the power of the holy spirit. That all-
powerful force— which we have labeled intuition—when it
enters a man's soul and gives him religious certainty, Calvin
sees as God's active agent.
Speaking of the Bible, he says you can respect its majesty,
you can appreciate its literary content, but "it never seriously
affects us till it is confirmed by the Spirit in our hearts."
When the persuasion comes, the mind rests with a security
that is impervious to any doubt and is stronger than any rea-
son. A man knows! The Spirit has been confirmed in the
mind and, Calvin adds, it is sealed in the heart.
Let me share with you these words from The Institutes,
Book Three, Chapter II, Section vii:

Now the human mind, blinded and darkened as it is, is very

far from being able to penetrate and attain to a knowledge of
the Divine will; and the heart also, fluctuating in perpetual
hesitation, is far from continuing unshaken in that persuasion.
Therefore our mind must be illuminated, and our heart estab-
lished by some exterior power, that the word of God may obtain
full credit with us. Now, we shall have a complete definition of
faith, if we say, that it is a steady and certain knowledge of the
Divine benevolence toward us, which, being founded on the
truth of the gratuitous promise in Christ, is both revealed to
our minds, and confirmed to our hearts, by the Holy Spirit.

The logician John Stuart Mill said that the "truths known
by intuition are the original premises from which all others
are inferred." Is this not so? Ask yourself what is important
and what it is that we are really talking about here and now.
Mastery from the Mystery of Intuition 131

What are the basic premises of your life? What do you be-
lieve?
"I believe ..." someone says, "no, it's more than belief:
I know that God is."

"How do you know? Prove it to me."

"I don't need to prove it. It has gripped the core of my
deepest awareness. One day I was surer than I am of anything
that in Jesus Christ is the redemptive power to free me from
sin and guilt. From an aimless wanderer I was made a voyager
on the waters of God's everlasting mercy and peace."
"Oh come now. Don't tell me that! How did it happen?"
"Beyond a certain point I cannot explain! I find that I
don't need to explain it to you or myself or anybody else.
This I know: It does happen. It did happen. I can say to you,
as I say to myself, 'The spirit blows where it listeth.' In a
moment my seeking, my struggling was at an end. I found
one rock of sureness and steadiness on which to stand when
all else was shifting sand— the rock of faith."

There is little to be added to this vast and beautiful and

mysterious fact of human experience. Guard and treasure
your gift of intuition. For here, however faltering and flick-
ering its glow, it is the final lamp unto our feet. With this
light one can explore the heights and the depths of life's ulti-
mate meaning. Here is the light to point your way to peace
of soul.
 X

OVERCOMING
THE DARK OPPONENTS
WHO CHALLENGE THE WAY
 . . . though I walk through the valley of the shadow . . . thy rod and
thy staff they comfort me . . .

Psalms 23:4

.diet yourself well on

. . the biography of good and great men.
. . .

See how little a space one sorrow really makes in life. See scarce a page,
perhaps, given to some grief similar to your own, and how triumphantly
the life sails on beyond it.
Bulwer-Lytton

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our

skill. Our antagonist is our helper.
Burke

difficulty remember that God, like a gymnastic

In case of any
you against a rough antagonist. For what end? That
trainer, has pitted
you may be an Olympic conqueror, and this cannot be without toil.
Epictetus

Less pure had been the gums which the odorous balsam gives, if it
had not been cut by the knife of the Arabian Sheperd.
Metastasio

Kites rise against and not with the wind . . . No man ever worked
his passage anywhere in a dead calm.
John Neal

Our greatest men reveal to us a

. . . life whose glory is not in the

absence of suffering, but in the fact that its sufferings have been made
creative, transmuted into the stuff of life itself.

Rabindranath Tagore
 I think you will agree that, in religious litera-

ture, the 23rd Psalm holds a unique position in the appre-

ciation of men. It has haunting beauty. It is rich with a fine
patina that only time can give. Revered by the centuries, it
touches the deepest sensitivity and affinities of man's soul. In
it is music, poetry, perfect prose, all fused by universal long-
ing and experience.
But its final test lies not in its age, its beauty, its coloration,
but rather in the quality of its tone. It has relevance to man's
need. Its precious worth is not just in the sound of its words,
or in the number of times it's been read, or in the way it is
hallowed by familiarity and repetition. It speaks truth. It has
traversed the hard road of life across centuries and speaks of
the totality of man's experience. Happy and comforting mo-
ments are present, but also the knowledge that man's high
idealism and purpose lose strength and need replenishment.
Life is not all sweetness and light; there are shadows, ene-
mies, mortal danger. The Psalm does not omit one aspect of
life.

Recently a woman visited the community I live in. After

some days she said, "I've never been in a town, to my recol-
lection, where I've met so many widows." I don't know statis-

tically how many there are relative to other areas. There are
many. But this can be said with certainty, that each of those
women could tell of some occasion when at one moment the
path seemed to stretch out ahead, relatively untroubled.
*35
136 Secrets of Self-Mastery

Then, behold, the whole picture was suddenly changed. The

future became clouded and uncertain. A dark opponent
blocked the way.
In one way or another, sorrow, tragedy, disappointment,
failure, stand unexpectedly and forbiddingly before us. Our
children fail the goal they set for themselves, or they fall be-
low the standard we had dreamed for them. Disease or age
dulls our senses. The energy of youth is subdued by the
burden of the years. War calls, or poverty drains, or weakness
betrays, and suddenly a silent, strong force challenges our
way.
We can't talk about any mastery of life without consider-
ing such times of hardship. We must be prepared for diffi-
culty. To be successful we must make weapons and school
ourselves in methods of defense. But how? What are the steps
and secrets here?
First of all, we can accept the fact that, in one form or an-
other, as the 23rd Psalm suggests, some distressing deal is in
the cards for us all. Forearmed with this knowledge, we must
believe that we are capable of meeting and facing obstacles,
and we must strengthen our inner fortifications.
On this matter of preparation, look at two of the heroes of
history. Here are two men who dealt masterfully with life,
first of all because they had prepared themselves. One is

known as David, a shepherd boy. He is seen in his early years

guarding his sheep, learning to use his sling to protect his
flock. But more than that, he is absorbing the quiet and
solemnity of nature. He is learning the wisdom of the natural
world and the wisdom of man. He is growing in the fear of
the Lord.
Now turn to another scene in his life, one in dramatic con-
trast to the quiet picture of the boy tending his lambs. Now
he stands before the giant Goliath, who has terrified the le-
gions of King Saul. The little shepherd lad goes out alone to
meet the enemy. Behold, there is an astonishing and unex-
Overcoming Dark Opponents Who Challenge the Way 137

pected victory. A miracle is wrought. The giant falls before

David's sling. Then that shepherd boy, so insignificant in the
back meadows with the flock, goes on to become Israel's most
illustrious king. His courage and faith and steadiness and
vision help to expand and stabilize a whole people. But do
not forget his days of preparation, when, as a shepherd, he
was quietly growing in strength.
Turn to a page from the history of our own country. When
the very foundations of our corporate life were shaken during
the Civil War, the man who led the nation through to peace
was one who had long been schooled in the hardships of
frontier life. From and rail-splitting
the rigors of log-cabin
days, from disappointment in romance, from difficulties met
in the daily struggle with poverty, from defeat at elections,
from the discipline of himself and other men, he learned that
life was tears as well as laughter.
The competent individual in any field is known by his
ability tomeet emergencies. The experienced surgeon per-
forms an exacting operation. All seems to be going well. But
at a particularly crucial moment the patient's pulse begins
to fail and his life is in jeopardy. But the long, silent study
of years, together with more years of building up experience,
have made that doctor fitted for moments like this. Quick
orders are given. Decisive action follows firm decision. The
patient's strength is restored and he lives.

Look into the courtroom. The question between the con-

tenders is important. The masterful lawyer has carefully
prepared his case. His brief is ready, the procedure is visual-
ized in his mind, and the groundwork for the steps in his
presentation has been laid with thoroughness. But the un-
expected happens. The testimony of a witness suddenly puts
a different slant on the facts. A bit of evidence is introduced
that was not anticipated. The case, with its important conse-
quences can be lost. But that trial expert was made for issues
like this. Out of his silent times of thought and preparation
138 Secrets of Self-Mastery

have come versatility and judgment to cope with any eventu-

ality. He changes his emphasis in presentation. The seem-
ingly important factors are met head-on and reduced to
inconsequential size before the larger issues they at first

seemed to weaken. The and the cause it represents, is

case,
won because there was preparation to meet any difficulty that
might challenge him.
It is wise to admit to yourself that in one form or another

the dark opponent will, at some time, block the way. And
your preparation gains a step forward when you accept the
fact that all of us were made to endure and survive trouble.
This is amazingly verified by what we are physiologically.
Our physical organs are built to meet unexpected trials. One
lung can be lost. The heart may be impaired. The liver may
not function fully. The major portion of the pancreas, we
are told, can be removed, and still sufficient alkaline secretion
is produced to carry on the basic process of digestion. Yet
the physical organism can still live. It is equally true that, as
we are physiologically able to continue, so are we able to do
mentally and spiritually. There is much truth in the adage,
"No burden is put upon us that we do not have the strength
to bear."
We
were made not merely to uneventfully plod along the
road of life; we were made to do battle with unexpected as-
sailants ofsorrow and opposition and find comfort and hope
and renewed strength in overcoming them. G. K. Chesterton
once said, "For one man who wants to be comforted, a hun-
dred want to be stirred. Men, want in the last resort, not
. . .

life, but drums." He's right, isn't he? To know that struggle
willcome, to prepare for it, and to know that this is what we
were made for, is an indispensable basis for any victory in
life.

The importance of these matters cannot be overempha-

sized when we think of the development of our own character
Overcoming Dark Opponents Who Challenge the Way 139

and our children's. We an unhappy

certainly are reaping
harvest in the generation that has had a weak and libertine
education, with its minimal emphasis on discipline and the
need to be strong and prepared. In 1941 Will Durant wrote
with feeling and fire, "The result is an adolescent without
responsibility, a maturity without character; and our . . .

children will not thank us for the liberty of their youth. To

exact nothing of a child that its intellect cannot understand
and approve is the depth of nonsense to which some of us
dedicated ourselves in the days of our dreams. Parents must
learn again to command, to assign duties and see to it that
they are performed; they must not be ashamed to require—
and must fit themselves to deserve filial respect . .
." It is the
externally imposed and inwardly accepted discipline that has
brought substantial progress in any people of history. We see
it vividly, in our time, in the rapid progress and development

of Soviet Russia. We must never avoid, either in personal or

corporate life, coming to terms with the requirements and
responsibilities that make us strong— unless we prefer to
breed a generation of totally mollycoddled, confused, and
aimless individuals.
No matter where we look we see the advantages of pre-
paredness. Lord Nelson's astonishing successes came on the
sea because of his insistence on being forearmed. What hard-
ship and hard work he demanded of himself and his men!
But the confidence and skill in battle were rooted in the dis-
cipline that he had imposed on himself and his men. It mat-
tered not that his opponents were idle in their port; he and
his navy were tirelessly training at sea. On the occasion when
he learned that Villeneuve had returned to Toulon because
of bad weather be exclaimed, "These gentlemen are not ac-
customed to the Gulf of Lyons gales, but we have buffeted
them for twenty-one months without carrying away a spar."
Struggle and opposition are our lot in life— and the only
140 Secrets of Self-Mastery

way to meet them masterfully is to know that they will come

and diligently prepare for them.

But let us keep in mind that we were made only for

conflict; itis in how we meet opposition that determines the

real measure of our mastery.

When we read a biography of a famous man, one of our
first questions is: How did he start? Tell us about it. That is

always an interesting part of a book. But more interesting

still is how he ended up. We are willing to read about the

fair breezes that blew him along his course. But tell us of the
storms! That's the drama and excitement that bring us to
the edge of our seats. That part moves us most because it tells
us of the stuff of which he was made.
We are touched, as Jesus speaks the words of the Sermon
on the Mount. We can see clearly in our mind's eye the place
where He purportedly spoke those immortal truths. To the
north can be seen the snow-covered peak of Mount Hermon.
Southward the River Jordon begins its major flow to the
Dead Sea. The slope where the Master stands inclines gently
to touch the waters of Lake Galilee. Hundreds listen, with
loving attention; there is a lifting up of hearts. Jesus and His
listeners are wrapped in glory and exhilaration that cannot
be fully explained by any of them. We listen with those who
are there. We breathe the air they do, and it has a new fresh-
ness and stimulation. We walk away with them, His spirit
giving a new dimension to our life. We, with all who are
there, know that this man is, indeed, a Master.
But in the narrow, twisting streets of Jerusalem, where
people spat upon Him, where His shoulders sag under the
burden of a cross, where blood trickles into His eyes to
mingle with the salt of His tears of pain, we are moved to a
feeling that Galilee could not evoke. Look at Him! In silence,
in spite of the mockery and cruelty, He keeps going. We fall
on our knees in Hismost terrible but most majestic hour.
Overcoming Dark Opponents Who Challenge the Way 141

He gave us immortality in this life, but we do not purchase

it with our comfort but with our pain.

All who know Mormonism, to-

the past history of
gether with the discipline and dedication that mark that
religious order, have great respect for it. Something of the
original vitality of Brigham Young still flows through it.
Recall that man's early life. It was marked by suffering under
extreme poverty and living by the standards of a strict moral
code. Brigham spent only twelve days in school and Vardis
Fisher has written, "During the remainder of his boyhood
he chopped cordwood, plowed and planted and reaped, going
barefoot most of the time and in rags, but keeping his will
unbroken and his mind serene. His father often punished
him, giving him a blow first and a warning afterward, be-
cause his son often walked on Sunday, not for exercise but
for pleasure." Out of that stern background came the strong
resources to lead those "children of God," across the plains,
facing devastating hardship and opposition, to Utah. Because
Brigham Young had met and mastered obstacles, because he
had mastered himself, he created some of the finest dignity
and glories of the Mormon faith.

The man who has really mastered himself will look

and opposition not with fear but with exhilara-
at difficulties
tion and The New Testament speaks of "glory-
anticipation.
ing in tribulation" because "tribulation worketh patience,'
and patience, experience; and experience, hope: and hope
maketh not ashamed."
We have to live with ourselves. To live with a self that has
been fearful of trouble, that has evaded hardships, that has
weakly compromised instead of honestly struggling against
evil, can produce no happiness or pleasure. Our conscience
gives us a glow of inner dignity when we can say to ourselves
142 Secrets of Self-Mastery

that we have, when life demanded it, pulled with vigor and
determination against the tide.

The truth is that our physical and mental and spiritual

nerves are most keyed up, are sharpest, when we face diffi-

culty. I have a friend who is a flier. He has told me of hazard-

ous flights during the war and of storms and sleet in more
recent times. I've always been impressed how alive his eyes
become, how animated his voice, as he describes those mo-
ments. Once he was asked why he found such satisfaction in
those experiences. His response was, "Why, I suppose that
then I had the feeling most of all that I was alive."
We have been made to survive just about any foe except
success. When there is no feeling of opposition, when the im-
agination visualizes no contender who will rise up to offer his
fearsome challenge, then life softens up. Phillips Brooks ex-
pressed it this way: "Bad will be the day for every man when

he becomes absolutely contented with the life that he is liv-

ing, with the thoughts that he is thinking, with the deeds
that he is doing, when there is not forever beating at the
doors of his soul some great desire to do something larger."
It is the answer to a challenge keeps us from falling into
the slough of idle content. With a purpose that is beyond
ourselves, with the keying up of our energies and resources,
we find that life has a vitality and meaning.
To believe that we some good
are born into this world for
and constructive purpose, and to move forward, enables us
to take what opposition or failure there may be without suc-
cumbing to it. We may fail or seem to be subdued, but only
momentarily. The cause for which we are struggling is
greater than ourselves, and the struggle itself, be it successful
or unavailing, is inconsequential.
You see this masterful strength in a man like Lincoln.
Harsh criticism and stinging opposition surrounded and con-
fronted him. Yet he moved with dignity and strength and
steadiness. The outward barbs did not wound him inwardly.
Overcoming Dark Opponents Who Challenge the Way 143

His purpose in life was his shield. One may wonder how so
many individuals, facing vast tides of opposition, can still

move forward with such resolution and will. The only an-
swer seems to be the fact that they are committed to a cause
that transcends their own brief lives.
Something of heroic quality is felt in the apostle Paul. He
was a prisoner; his end was near. His cell, bare and inhos-
pitable, was in total contrast to the glory of the Roman Em-
pire around him. A citizen of Rome, he could have made
compromises and adjusted to the pleasures and outward trap-
pings of Roman civilization. But something stronger claimed
him. A purpose gripped and dominated him that would not
let him go. By giving his life for what he believed in, now

stands out more masterfully across the centuries than the rich
and the idle and the briefly successful of gilded Rome. His
words touch the depths of every sensitive and sincere soul,
"I have fought a good fight— I have kept the faith."

I have stood under the awesome shadow of the Parthe-

non in Athens and looked at the great stone drums that
Alexander the Great, before he began his victorious cam-
paigns, pointed out to his generals. There was a great pur-
pose that kindled his imagination. So successfully did he
transmit his vitality and intensity to his associates that the
and obstacles and opposition that lay before him
difficulties

were as nothing before the bravery and daring to meet and

overcome it till the world was conquered. Alexander the
Great was magnificent as he stood on the Acropolis at Athens.
But at the end of his career, with purpose and meaning dis-
integrated, he died a dissolute death. He failed because he
had lacked what sustained Paul to the bitter end; a cause
beyond himself that would enable him to say finally, "I have
fought a good fight— I have kept the faith."
We meet life masterfully when there is knowledge and a
growing conviction that God is and that He is with us. This
144 Secrets of Self-Mastery

is the ultimate source of power to meet the dark opponents

on the way.
Let me share
with you a few sentences from an unexpected
from a man in Lancashire, England.
letter that I received
Having read my book, Personal Security Through Faith, he
expressed sincere appreciation, and then went on to say,
". . . perhaps most of us, like myself, are turned to the search
for a really secure way of life because of some trouble.
"And it is, perhaps, after trouble that security seems so far
away. When we have health and ability to work, we believe
that we can earn our own help—either
security without any
from above or below. When we
our health we tend atlose
first to think that we are at the end and without hope.

"Perhaps, serious illnesses which curtail our activities

. . .

for more than a short period— are sent to us merely that we

shall start to search for the real truth of being. All I know is

that I have been forced— almost, perhaps, against my will— to

take the first steps in throwing my whole being on the mercy
and strength of God. [Italics mine.] He is caring for me al-
ways. I know that now, though two or three years ago I would
probably have laughed at the idea. Indeed, He is caring for
me when most men moan that they are
so well that at the age
beginning to be unemployable, I am giving up my business
and starting a new career."
To have the sense of God's spirit and purpose in our lives
does for any man what it has done for our friend from Eng-
land. New Other people are inspired.
frontiers are opened.
Those who follow in the way that has been blazed are en-
abled to go further than would have been the case otherwise.
There's evidence to show that our Pilgrim Fathers thought
that the land inward from the coast was without any value.
To them it was an impassable forest. Up to the time of
George Washington the Alleghenies were regarded as a bar-
rier over which men would not, and felt they could not, pass.
As a matter of fact, Patrick Henry likened the Allegheny
Overcoming Dark Opponents Who Challenge the Way 145

Mountains to the Alps that separated European nations, and

he said that "mountain ranges are lines that God has set to
separate one people from another."
One of the most thrilling chapters in our history is the
record of those who opened the way, who found the passes,
who built the tunnels and bridges and roads and the ma-
chines that enabled men to move over the seemingly impos-
sible barriers. The stark and lonely places of the world, which
seemed to be impossible to penetrate, have been conquered
through man's efforts.
As our lives have been enriched by the inspiration of
others who have gone before, so we are compelled, by God's
spirit, to do the same for those who follow. In doing so, we

are strengthened by the realization that, in meeting our hard-

ships with patience and courage and confidence, we achieve
some of our deepest insights and the richest fulfillment. We
can look back over the hard and bitter days and years of
struggle and count them among our best.
The other day I received a letter from a woman in the
Midwest who wrote of her hard and sorrowful times. Then
she added, "What understanding and sensitiveness I have
acquired through the years came most of all from those mile-
stones that mark my darkest times." There is wisdom in her
words. Those who go through hope
their dark hours with
and calmness will find that they are milestones marking their
surest moments of progress.
There are three ways that prepare us for life's trials. One
is the Spartan way that says, "I have strength within me to

do it. 'I am the captain of my soul.' With the courage and

will that is mine, I will master be when the struggle comes."
Another way is in the spirit of Socrates, who affirmed that
we have minds, and judgment to evaluate and help
reason,
us cope with the enigmas and struggles of life.
The Christian way is the third approach. It doesn't exclude
the first two, but it adds, "You don't begin with yourself,
146 Secrets of Self-Mastery

your will, or your reason. You begin with God, who is the
beginning and the end. When your strength grows weak and
your reason fails you, faith in the Creator gives you the power
to overcome all things."
We need the presence of God's spirit in the midst of our
struggles. That inner quiet gives us a relief from uncertainty,
from tension, from fear. Gone is our concern about what
others may think; we stand true to ourselves and what is of
ultimate value.
Jesus of Nazareth, standing before the tribunal, about to
be crucified, was a victim of man's ignorance and brutality.
Yet He was quiet; there was an absence of bitterness or com-
plaint. His inner mastery, that had developed through the
years, reached its superb climax in the agony of the Garden
of Gethsemane. Through tortured hours He came to the in-
vincible conviction, "Not my
but thine be done."
will,

We need to be honest with ourselves and admit that, in

the last analysis, our ultimate source of power comes not
from within ourselves, but from God. Alexander Miller, in
The Renewal of Man, put it this "The human dilemma
way:
calls not for a resolve but for a rescue." The man who stands
with mastery before life's dilemmas is the man of intellectual
strength and conviction, securely girded with will and rea-
son. But go by, he will fail, his wounds and scars
as the years
will increase— the battle is unending. His will grows weak;
his energy wanes; his doubts grow more pressing when his
sense of purpose and direction has grown dim and he is ever
more aware of his weaknesses and his defeats; he can no
longer respond as he once did. The only answer for him is
"Underneath are the everlasting arms."
in the awareness that
He sees had a small part in building the universe;
that he has
he has moved forward a little bit and made the way somewhat
easier for others who follow. And his self-mastery, his final
peace, rest on the belief in God, who sees the over-all purpose
in creation.
 XI

THE ENNOBLING
POWER
OF PATIENCE
 ... let patience have her perfect work. ... be swift to hear, slow to
speak, slow to wrath.
James 1:4, ip

By their patience and perseverance God's children are truly known

from hypocrites and dissemblers.
Augustine

Never think that God's delays are God's denials. Hold on! hold fast!
hold outl Patience is genius.
Count de Buffon

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

Emerson
Patience and gentleness are power.
Leigh Hunt

Patience; accomplish thy labor; accomplish thy work of affection!

Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance is godlike.
Therefore accomplish thy labor of love, till the heart is made
godlike,
Purified, strengthened, perfected and rendered more worthy of
heaven.
Longfellow

They also serve who only stand and wait.

Milton
He that has patience may compass anything.
Francois Rabelais

Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty.

Ruskin

He that will have a cake of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding.
Shakespeare
 o, ur grandparents did more repeating of old
axioms, more reading of wise sayings, than do we moderns.
Copybooks of students from the nineteenth century contain
adages and poems written by youngsters, who thereby gained
spiritual inspiration as well as improved skill in penmanship.
In our home is a book, profusely illustrated and beauti-
fully set in clear type, that was published in the nineties. It
bears the title, The Ideal Life— the Royal Road to Success
and Happiness. On the cover, bordered with lilies, is a pic-
ture of a Victorian family seated before a fireplace. Its six
hundred pages are devoted to the qualities that make for the
good life. Among its finest sections is a full treatment of one
of the cardinal virtues that is indispensable to life's mastery.
A few light verses by Mary F. Van Dyck identify it. They
read:

There is a little plant that grows

In almost every soil,

If he who sows the seed bestows
A little care and toil
Though needful as the constant food
That daily want supplies,
Like every other common good,
We fail the plant to prize.
Till absence of it proves its worth,
And discord holds its sway;
And crosses incident to earth,
Grow heavier every day.

149
150 Secrets of Self-Mastery

Well call it "Patience," kind to three

That would redeem the fall,
Blest Faith, and Hope, and Charity,
We surely need them all!
been told by a native of the eastern part of America
I've
that in many a kitchen of the sturdy New England house-
holds there grew a "patience" plant, cultivated where busy
hands toiled all day. When evening came and spirits may
have been at low ebb, the plant spoke its simple and ele-
mental lesson: patience. That little plant may very well have
played its part in developing the fine-grained New England
character.
A boy, who was informed that oaks grow out of acorns,
planted an acorn in the earth, and the next day, eager to see
what was happening, he dug it up again. He repeated the
process for a whole week, but still no oak appeared. "It isn't
true," he cried, "it doesn't happen. No oak tree come from
the acorn."
"My and wiser man, "it will happen.
son," said an older
But it takes time. Rain and sun and warmth and quietness
and many days and weeks must pass before the acorn unlocks
its secret heart to begin the oak. You have to be patient to
see it. And 'twill take all the years of your life till it stands
a great tree against the sky."
In your travels you may have stood before the bronze doors
of the impressive Romanesque baptistry in Florence. There
you will have admired the work of Ghiberti. Each panel of
those majestic doors is a masterpiece. You may be moved to
say, "What vision, what genius, created these!"

True— but only in part, my friend. It took twenty years of

patient labor till the vision was translated into that ageless
bronze.
Patience is not acquiescence. It is not a quiet subservience
and indifference. It is active orientation and growth of mind
The Ennobling Power of Patience 151

and strengthening of emotions. It requires that we know

where we are going and that we know the difficulties on the
way. Patience, which negates wasting time in quick and irra-
tional spurts of energy or wandering aimlessly along byways
instead of pursuing the intended goal, is indispensable to
fulfillment.

All of us have seen the disaster that results from lack

of patience. People are hurt because someone could not re-
strain a sharp word, a hurried judgment. A business can fail

because someone, impatient for results, insists on overex-

pansion.
We live in times when Howard Thurman's lines from
"Deep Is the Hunger" speak for many:
Always I have an underlying anxiety about things.
Sometimes I am in a hurry to achieve my ends
And am completely without patience. It is hard for me to
realize that some growth is slow.
That all processes are not swift. I cannot always discriminate
Between what takes time to develop and what can be rushed,

O to understand the meaning of perspective . . .

But it is not too late to acquire patience and benefit from

its application in our daily lives.

A
quiet, restrained approach to any situation, to any task,
to any problem, is the essence of patience.
Pavlov, one of Russia's greatest scientists, just before his
death at the age of eighty-seven, wrote a bequest to the aca-
demic youth of his nation. Although his prime interests lay
in science, his counsel is by no means restricted to that field.
He wrote:
What can I wish to the youth of my country who devote
themselves to science?

Firstly, gradualness. About this most important condition of

fruitful scientific work I never can speak without emotion. . . .
152 Secrets of Self-Mastery

From the very beginning of your work, school yourselves to

severe gradualness in the accumulation of knowledge.
Learn the ABC of science before you try to ascend to its sum-
mit. Never begin the subsequent without mastering the pre-
ceding. Never attempt to screen an insufficiency of knowledge
even by the most audacious surmise and hypothesis. Howsoever
this soap-bubble will rejoice your eyes by its play, it inevitably
will burst and you will have nothing except shame.
School yourselves to demureness and patience. Learn to inure
yourselves to drudgery in science. Learn, compare, collect the
facts!
Perfect as wing of a bird, it never could raise the bird
is the
up without on air. Facts are the air of a scientist. With-
resting
out them you never can fly. Without them your "theories" are
vain efforts.

But learning, experimenting, observing, try not to stay on

the surface of the facts. Do not become the archivists of facts.
Try to penetrate to the secret of their occurrence, persistently
search for the laws which govern them.

Clearly, there is a wisdom in those words that each of us

can seek to use, regardless of our profession or way of life.

We are able to endure many irritations that are not worth

bothering about, if we would but try. The patience of Jesus
should be the supreme example that we keep before us as we
go through each day, saying to ourselves, "I will keep feeding
my mind and heart with such a spirit."

Some time ago, on a rainy day, as I drove through a

long stretch of quiet countryside, I turned on the car radio.
Fibber McGee was outlining to Molly an exciting and am-
bitious plan to produce a spectacular motion picture that
would out-DeMille DeMille. It was to be staged in the garage
which would be the studio. There were to be ten people in
the cast. The back yard was to be the set. There were to be
conflicts between vast ancient armies. In answer to Molly's
insistent and sensible questioning, Fibber said that by trick
The Ennobling Power of Patience 153

photography, repeating and splicing the film many times, the

illusion of vastness and numbers would be created. Molly
finally pointed out even if all this was possible, he
that,
would still run into trouble because each member would
want to be the star. Fibber pondered that a moment, obvi-
ously deflated, then replied, "Molly, that's the trouble with
the world today. Nobody's willing to be a spear carrier any
more."
It may be exhilarating to play a starring role in life, but
there is steady satisfaction in doing the quiet, unheralded
work, patiently, lovingly. We should make use of the power
of humility, the spirit that is quick to hear and feeL but slow
to speak, slow to anger.
A situation can easily disintegrate into chaos if we try to

force things. Impatience brings in its wake many negative

and destructive aftereffects. Dr. Leland D. Hinsie, in a dis-
cussion of the methods of training children, points out that
parents should be in no great hurry. Successful management
of children comes by calm reasoning, by repetition, and by a
schooling that extends over a period of several years. He says,

"What parents do not commonly understand is that forming

a character ... a slow process and that character can be
is

remarkably distorted by neglect or oversolicitude or by forc-

ing." He then added, "We overlook the fact that it takes time
to make a mother and a father."
we consider some of our own personal experiences, we
If
will have to admit that in many situations we have reacted
badly to pressure from someone else. Therefore we should try
to keep that fact in mind when we find ourselves impatiently
pressuring others.
How often I have counseled individuals whose marriages
have been badly shaken. I shall never forget the poignant
regret of one man who said, "I wish to God that I had been
able to control my impatience. It wasn't that I didn't have a
good wife. I did. But my self-centered picture of what I
154 Secrets of Self-Mastery

thought she ought to be made me force issues that hurt her

so deeply and so continuously that the damage is now beyond
repair." He learned, too late, one of the fundamental rules
for self-mastery.
One of the greatest Biblical passages is from the Gospel of
Luke, "In your patience ye shall win your souls." It is good

for a man to know that he may win his own security, his own
integrity, the flowering of his own selfhood, not by strife, but
by patience.

The surest foundation for patience is having the per-

spective of eternity. We must be certain of the end before we
can travel the distance, through light and dark, through good
times and bad, with confidence and serenity. When we grow
weary, we
are apt to forget that there is an over-all meaning
of meaning we can never fully grasp. At these times do
life, a
we most need patience and an abiding faith in God. "A thou-
sand years in His sight," says the Psalmist, "are but as yester-
day when it is past ." . .

The Church was not built in our time, nor in a few hun-
dred years of history. It goes back to the dawn of conscience,
to that moment when man, standing upright, knew that he
had a mind and a soul. It enshrines the heroism, inspiration,
insight that lighted the centuries. And it must be preserved
for future generations, who will seek to live by that light.
Something of the perspective of God is here, quietly, insist-
ently calling men in every era to strive for the truth till there
existson earth a true brotherhood of man. How patiently
God must watch us and work through us!
There is a patience that has created miracles of order
about us, that has wrought wonders of harmony in the
cosmos and awesome structures of faith and hope in the seek-
ing mind and soul of man. Wherever we look we are re-
minded that we are a part of a creation where patience is
indispensable to any perfect work. In our quest for knowl-
The Ennobling Power of Patience 155

edge of ourselves, of the world, in our efforts to bring justice

and righteousness and truth to all men, we must also seek
patience. We will find that in the spirit of God that is in our
soul.
 XII

MASTERY
AS A CITIZEN
IN THE SOVEREIGN
KINGDOM OF GOD
 . and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The Kingdoms
. .

of this world are become the Kingdoms of our Lord and he shall . . .

reign forever and ever.

Revelation 11:15

As a man is, so is his God; therefore God was so often an object of

mockery.
Goethe

God governs the world, and we have only to do our duty wisely,
and leave the issue to Him.
John Jay

The God of metaphysics is but an idea. But the God of religion,

the maker of heaven and earth, the sovereign Judge of actions and
thoughts, is a power.
Joubert

To God belongeth the east and the west; therefore, whithersoever

ye turn yourselves to pray, there is the word of God; for God is omni-

present and omniscient.

Koran

History is the revelation of of Providence.

Kossuth

If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness and find'st no Sinai, 'tis

thy soul is poor.

Lowell

A voice is in the wind I do not know;

A meaning on the face of the high hills
Whose utterance I cannot comprehend,
A something is behind them: that is God.
George MacDonald

All laws suppose a lawgiver, and ... all working involves a Divine
energy.
Alexander Maclaren
 s 'hortly before his death in 1911, Sam Walter
Foss composed these lines under thetitle, "Two Gods":

A boy was born 'mid little things,

Between a little world and sky—

And dreamed not of the cosmic rings
Round which the circling planets fly.

He lived in little works and thoughts,

Where little ventures grow and plod,
And paced and ploughed his little plots,
And prayed unto his little God.

But as the mighty system grew,

His faith grew faint with many scars;
The cosmos widened in his view-
But God was lost among his stars.

II

Another boy in lowly days,

As he, to little things was born,
But gathered lore in woodland ways,
And from the glory of the morn.

As wider skies broke on his view,

God greatened in his growing mind;
Each year he dreamed his God anew,
And left his older God behind.

159
160 Secrets of Self-Mastery

He saw the boundless scheme dilate,

In star and blossom, sky and clod;
And as the universe grew great,
He dreamed for it a greater God.
Those lines contain a twofold idea that no honest seeker
of truth should side-step, that no counselor who tries to help
us in our search should evade. The first idea is that man, to
a certain extent, creates his God. The other idea is that the
concept of God that a man has, helps to mold him. The
image that man creates in turn creates him.
I daresay that you put down on paper your concept of
if

God, you would use some imagery of the Bible to portray

Him in terms of personality. Many of us have a picture—vague
perhaps, but nonetheless sure— of a benign, fatherly figure.
Kirsopp Lake writes: "After all, Faith is not belief in spite
of evidence, but life in scorn of consequence—a courageous
thrust in the great purpose of all things and pressing forward
to finish the work which is in sight, whatever the price may
be." Then, expressing his opinion on the concept of God in
terms of personality, he writes, "Who knows whether the
'personality' of which men talk so much and know so little
may not prove to be the temporary limitation rather than
the necessary expression of Life?" Indeed, across the centu-
ries, scores and scores of men and women from the lowliest
to the highest intellectual circles have visualized their God
in terms of personality.
And some have described God as pure spirit, a force, a
power at work in the universe, similar to the classic definition
in the Westminster Catechism: "God is a spirit, infinite,
eternal and unchangeable . .
." Such a description is found
in Lololomai's Prayer, taken from The Indian Book, edited
by Natalie Curtis. The passage reads:

To whom do the Hopis pray?

which makes the rain— that makes
It is that all things. It is

Power, and it lives behind the sun.

Mastery as a Citizen in the Sovereign Kingdom of God 161

Does the Power that lives behind the sun look like a man, or
like anything that the Hopis have ever seen?
No, it is not like a man; we don't know how it looks. We
only know that it is.

When Lololomai, the chief, prays, how does he pray?

He goes to the edge of the cliff and turns his face to the ris-

ing sun, and scatters the sacred corn meal. Then he prays for
all the people. He asks that we may have rain and corn, and
that our fields may bring us plenty. He prays that all the people
may have health and long life and be happy and good in their
hearts. And Hopis are not the only people he prays for. He
prays for everybody in the whole world— everybody. And not
people alone; Lololomai prays for all the animals. And not for
animals alone; he prays for the plants. He prays for everything
that has life. That is how Lololomai prays.

But there are others who say, "I must be honest: I still go
to church, I bow my head in prayer, and try to worship. But
I have a deep personal perplexity; I ponder the chaos and
evil and the irrationalism in this world and I can't help but
express the taunting whisper in my mind, 'I wonder why I
am here at all.' Sincerely I question whether there is a God
at all. How can there be a good God, who would permit such
misery and sorrow in life?"

No matter what our concept of God is—or is not— to a

large degree we make it ourselves. Our idea of God is a result
of our experiences, our thinking; it is constructed on the
judgments, the observations, the evaluations, the condition-
ing, from within, and from external influences by our fellow
men.
Here is a woman who says her life is shattered, her faith
gone. Having lost a loved one, she now lies whimpering and
helpless. You say to her, "My dear, what kind of faith did you
have that it has now abandoned you? Tell me about your
idea of God. What kind of God did you believe in?"
162 Secrets of Self-Mastery

And she describes a cosmic Santa Claus whose prime intent

seemed to be to look after her welfare, her comfort. Suddenly
the image was smashed. The God she dreamed was inade-
quate.
Over there is a very religious man. There is but one reli-
gion. And he has it. He you that he has been washed in
tells

the blood, that he is saved. But listen to him speak further.

He is bitter toward those whose religion is different from his.

He is constantly plaguing his associates. He damns as pagans

other Christians whose practices differ from his. Why this
strange paradox? "My
what do you think about God?"
friend,
He outlines for you his concept of a jealous and inflexible
monarch, easily angered, whose subjects must obey or they
are cast into the eternal fire of hell.
We reflect in our lives the kind of God we believe in; if the
concept of God is limited, that limitation is within us. Wrote
Edna St. Vincent Millay:

He whose soul is flat,

The sky will close in on him by and by.

On the other hand, the greater your image of God, the

more you will recognize and appreciate the wonder and the
majesty of all creation. His compassion and forgiveness
reaches into the darkest depths; his love extends to the farth-
est boundaries of space. The Book of Revelation describes
the Divine thus: and there were great voices in heaven,
". . .

saying, The Kingdomsof this world are become the King-

doms of our Lord, and he shall reign forever and ever."
. . .

It is because we create false gods and because our ideas of

the Lord God Almighty are so inadequate that we have great

need of the Church. It is there to teach us, to remind and
guide us, to lift up to us the vision of God's sovereignty and
majesty. It presents us with a truer, grander, concept of the
Lord, preserving the vital religious tradition of mankind.
Mastery as a Citizen in the Sovereign Kingdom of God 163

With that exalted and ennobling concept in our souls, we are

enabled to deal more nobly and masterfully with life.

It is clear thatour concept of God should be ever-

growing. It requires meditation and prayer, evaluation and
interpretation. For some, this is accomplished with ease.
Chesterton said of St. Francis, "He ran away to God as other
boys have run away to sea." However, St. Francis was an
exception. For most of us, the development of a stable con-
cept ofGod is a hard and painstaking business. The more
common experience of man is described best by a quotation
from The Towers of Trebizond: "We may not be taken up
and transported to our journey's end, but must travel thither
on foot, traversing the whole distance of the narrow way."
In this task the individual and corporate experience of the
Church is tremendously helpful. It keeps before us the wider
ideal; it teaches us the language of symbols, which we need
to understand in order to best appreciate the concept of God.
Hocking, in his study, The Meaning of God, speaks of the
idea of God as containing an "uncounted infinity," which
rests upon personal experience, insight, and revelation.
Through sermon and prayer, by music and poetry, the
Church places that infinity before the seeking heart and
mind. Each participant in the Church contributes to and
takes something from it.
I'm sure you remember William Herbert Carruth's verses,
"Each in His Own Tongue." Simply and tellingly he shows
the different interpretations and concepts open to man's
mind.

A fire-mist and a planet—

A crystal and a cell,
A jelly-fish and a Saurian,
And caves where the cave men dwell;
Then a sense of law and beauty
And a face turned from the clod,—
164 Secrets of Self-Mastery

Some call it Evolution,

And others call it God.

A haze on the far horizon,

The infinite, tender sky,
The ripe, rich tint of the cornfields,
And the wild geese sailing high;
And all over upland and lowland
The charm of the golden rod,—
Some of us call it Autumn,
And others call it God.

A picket frozen on duty,

A mother starved for her brood,
Socrates drinking the hemlock,
And Jesus on the rood;
And millions who, humble and nameless,
The straight, hard pathway plod,—
Some call it Consecration
And others call it God.

It is difficult for some of us to think of "Church" as an

entity when there are so many varied denominations, but
basically, every Church is the House of God. The motto of
the Chapel at Watch Hill, Rhode Island proclaims on its

walls:

The Church is Many as the Waves, but One as the Sea.

In Essentials, Unity; in Non-Essentials, Liberty;
in All Things, Charity.

The Church exists, with its treasury of spiritual experi-

ence, with centuries of thinking and feeling about and be-
hind and through it, so that it can say to us, "In the deepest
perceiving and knowing, it is all God. This evolving universe,
the loveliness of nature, the nobility of man, all bespeak His
creativeness and purpose. Sing then His glory! Bow in won-
Mastery as a Citizen in the Sovereign Kingdom of God 165

der and love and praise! Then rise to walk the ways of man,
but with the majesty of eternity about you."
Are we deluding ourselves? Is the agnostic, who says, "I
don't know," really more intelligent and realistic than those
who affirm as fact a supposition that can't be proven? Is it all
just imaginative and lovely poetry—or an opiate— and no
more?
The answer is, "No." There are two things to be said. One,
if there is any weight of evidence, it points to God rather

than the absence of God. Secondly, accepting the idea of God,

experiencing the presence of God, acting as if God did not
exist.
Dr. Fosdick pointed out that it took only one footprint on
Robinson Crusoe's island to lead to the undeniable conclu-
sion that another human being was about. "You could not
explain that footprint as the accidental impact of the waves
upon the sand. Someone had been there."
As for the evidence of God, view this vast universe and
consider the sweep of history. Grant all of its evil and chaos.
The amazing thing is that, amid the debris, there are some
footprintson the sands of time. If there is but one footprint
of purpose, you know that there is a Creator, who indicates
a bold and a majestic purpose that can't be explained by
anything else we know.
Look at the cross of Calvary. If ever there was evidence of
human depravity, blindness, cowardice, ignorance, cruelty,
itwas there. And yet that is not how history interprets it.
Behold in the courage, the compassion, the nobility in Jesus,
there is an imprint that transcends evil and chaos.
You and I know about chromosomes and their chance ar-
rangement. We are told, and accept as true, that they deter-
mine the seeming ability, character, temperament of man.
That I will accept as a reasonably well-documented hypoth-
esis. But to ask me to believe that the mind of an Einstein,

or the humanitarianism of a Schweitzer, or the wisdom of a

166 Secrets of Self-Mastery

Lincoln, or the compassion and love of Jesus, is just a fortui-

tous arrangement of chromosomes is to ask me to stretch my
credulity too far. I cannot accept it. This is not blind acci-
dent; this reveals the spirit of God at work through man.
There are the footprints of order and law and compensa-
tion, and beauty and selflessness in man's history. It is a blind
man who will say they mean nothing. It is not all just matter
and motion. There is some noble purpose herel A Master
has created man and his destiny.
Shakespeare says:

There's a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew them how we will.

James Russell Lowell exclaims:

Truth forever on the scaffold,

Wrong forever on the throne,
Yet that scaffold sways the future.

The evidence of a Divine imprint in this cosmos is in the

soul of man!
To affirm this is not to accept an opiate. It does not re-
strain and restrict life; rather, it frees The unbeliever
it.

loses that broadening experience altogether. He denies him-

self the joy and fulfillment of a great friendship with God,
which is enriched by But more than that, he is forced
trust.

into the limitations of not [Link] to believe in any-

one or anything, he will find no reason to do much of any-
thing. He can make no choice, because he doesn't know what
to choose or why. As a result he denies himself the sense of
responsibility that comes from commitment. The "adventur-
ous joy of believing" is an experience that he does not know.
His skepticism and indecision can be a decisive factor in
creating an opiate to his spirit.
There is a poignant tragedy for the mind and the soul of
such a person. This is illustrated in the confessions of Kath-
Mastery as a Citizen in the Sovereign Kingdom of God 167

erine Mansfield. She wrote to one correspondent, after ex-

pressing first her rejection of the idea of a personal God, and
then her longing for such a belief, "It seems to me there is

a great change come over the world since people like us be-
lieved in God. God is now gone for all of us. Yet we must
believe; and not only that— we must carry our weakness and
our sin and our devilishness to somebody. I don't mean in
a bad abasing way. But we must feel that we are known, that
our hearts are known, as God knew us. Therefore love today
between lovers has to be not only human but divine. Their
love is their religion. But oh, it is no good."
. . .

Without God, a man is a mere bit of flotsam, floating, like

other scum, on an aimless, cold and indifferent sea. To the
man who believes, life has meaning and in the struggle to
go forward there is glory. There can be no sense of shattered-
ness, the sense of the fragmentariness in your life if there is
God. Rather, there is relatedness, meaning, wholeness. As
D. Elton Trueblood put it, "The only sure way in which we
can transcend our human relativities is by obedience to the
absolute and eternal God."
I know at my deepest depths that God is because I have

seen that flash of the eternal in the temporal. God did not
stoop to earth just once, to reveal Himself at Bethlehem. I

have seen Him in lives that are strengthened, lived more

usefully,more compassionately— lives that have radiance, be-
cause they have looked on Him for but an instant and seen
all of God they need to know. His love and grace has drawn

and won their love and allegiance.

One of the finest descriptions of a Christian I've come
across was composed by Charles Clayton Morrison. "A Chris-
tian could be accurately defined as one who seeks to identify
his conduct with the will of God as this will reveals itself
ever anew in livingcompanionship with Jesus Christ." Love
and faith are the conductors through which God is com-
municated to the soul. The Christian sees in Jesus not acci-
168 Secrets of Self-Mastery

dent but revelation, and the glow from eternity he sees in

his Lord enters his own heart.
Here is a quick summary of two biographies that tells the
tale. Two boys are born and brought up in similar sections

in Europe. They both look out upon similar mountains. One,

an itinerant house painter, said later in life, "I hated my fa-
ther and I managed my mother." He outgrew his depend-
ent years. He became self-assertive, and he never outgrew
that. He let it become a hard shell, shutting out any sounds
of humanity and love. Out of that twisted life came a blight
on the world, for that man's name was Adolf Hitler.
The other boy developed in the spirit of kindness and
faith. He came to think of life with reverence, and some of
the "deep calling unto deep" that went on all the time in his
life led him to believe, as he put it, "to live is to owe." His

was a growing vision of service and in that vision was the

ever growing figure of the Christ. This man, whose name is
Albert Schweitzer, wrote "He comes to us as one unknown,
as He came to the disciples by the lake shore. He speaks the
old words 'Follow me' and sets us to tasks that He would
have fulfilled in our time. He commands, and to those who
obey in the conflict and the toil and the sufferings of a living
fellowship He reveals Himself as an ineffable mystery, and
in the struggle of life they shall discover for themselves who
He is."

Such a man hears the song of eternity, "the Kingdoms of

thisworld are become the Kingdoms of our Lord." This man
responds in affirmation, "and He shall reign forever and
ever." His heart and mind have been opened wide to the
energy and purpose of the Lord. Though he is a subject in
the Kingdom, he faces every peril in life with courage and
calm, for he is a nobleman in the service of The King.

this book, will you join with me in a simple

In closing
prayer, which has often been mine in the writing?
Mastery as a Citizen in the Sovereign Kingdom of God 169

May the words of our mouths, the meditations of our hearts,

the intentions of our minds, and the aspirations of our souls
be acceptable unto Thee.
Almighty God, give us an ever-growing concept of our task
and our destiny. As our spirit rises on the wings of reason and
faith, widen our awareness till we see Thy far horizons and
majestic vistas.
We acknowledge that we will not masters be until we Master
We bow to touch the hem of Thy sovereignty. Accept our
find.
service in that Everlasting Kingdom whose banners are right-
eousness, justice, peace and joy, through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen.
 (Continued fro?n front flap)

use of solitude and faith. He tells, too,

the secrets he has gleaned from his own

wide, practical experience— specific
methods of inestimable value for each
individual in handling his fears, temp-
tations, tensions, and all other dark
opponents which block the path to
mental and spiritual balance and
control.

Secrets Of Self-Mastery tells you

a great dealabout yourself and your fel-
low man. can help you to find the
It

personal security that is the foundation

of a full, meaningful life, as well as
unlock hidden resources deep within
you. At once ageless and timely — here
is one book which, in this troubled

world, will help you take heart, look

within, and walk in natural dignity
and grace.

Dr. Lowell Russell Ditzen, author of

Personal Security Through Faith and
You Are Never A lone is Minister of the
Reformed Church, Bronxville, New
York. Ordained in Topeka in 1936, he
has held pulpits in Utica, Chicago, and
New York City and has traveled widely
throughout the United States, Europe
and Asia. Dr. Ditzen is well known for
his radio appearances as guest minister
and sermons and articles which
for his
have appeared in numerous periodicals.

Henry Holt and Company, Inc.

383 Madison Avenue, New York 17
Chicago
O f- s. ft-
San Francisco
 (Photo by Robert Browning Baker)

Lowell Russell Ditzen, D.D., LL.D.