Our good
friend, Henry Drummond, in one of his most beautiful and
valuable little works, says--and how admirably and how
truly!--that “Love is the greatest thing in the
world.” Have you this greatest thing? Yes.
How, then, does it manifest itself? In kindliness,
in helpfulness, in service to those around you? If
so, well and good, you have it. If not, then I
suspect that what you have been calling love is something
else; and you have indeed been greatly fooled. In
fact, I am sure it is; for if it does not manifest itself
in this way, it cannot be true love, for this is the one
grand and never-failing test. Love is the statics,
helpfulness and service the dynamics, the former necessary
to the latter, but the latter the more powerful, as action
is always more powerful than potentiality; and, were it
not for the dynamics, the statics might as well not
be. Helpfulness: kindliness, service, is but the
expression of love. It is love in action; and unless
love thus manifests itself in action, it is an indication
that it is of that weak and sickly nature that needs
exercise, growth, and development, that it may grow and
become strong, healthy, vigorous, and true, instead of
remaining a little, weak, indefinite, sentimental
something or nothing.
It was
but yesterday that I heard one of the world's greatest
thinkers and speakers, one of our keenest observers of
human affairs, state as his opinion that selfishness is
the root of all evil. Now, if it is possible for any
one thing to be the root of all evil, then I think there
is a world of truth in the statement.
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But, leaving
out of account for the present purpose whether it is true
or not, it certainly is true that anyone who cannot get
beyond self robs their life of its chief charms, and more,
defeats the very ends they have in view.
It is a
well-known law in the natural world about us that whatever
has not use, that whatever serves no purpose, shrivels
up. So it is a law of our own being that they who
make themselves of no use, of no service to the great body
of mankind, who are concerned only with their own small
self, find that self, small as is, growing smaller and
smaller, and those finer and better and grander qualities
of their nature, those that give the chief charm and
happiness to life, shrivelling up. Such a one lives,
keeps constant company with their own diminutive and
stunted self; while those who, forgetting self, make the
object of their lives service, helpfulness, and kindliness
to others, find their whole nature growing and expanding,
themselves becoming large-hearted, magnanimous, kind,
loving, sympathetic, joyous, and happy, their life
becoming rich and beautiful. For instead of their
own little life alone they have entered into and have part
in a hundred, a thousand, in countless numbers of other
lives; and every success, every joy, every happiness
coming to each of these comes as such to themselves, for
they have a part in each and all. And thus it is
that one becomes a prince among men, a queen among women.
Why, one
of the very fundamental principles of life is so much
love, so much love in return; so much love, so much
growth; so much love, so much power; so much love, so much
life--strong, healthy, rich, exulting, and abounding
life. The world is beginning to realize the fact
that love, instead of being a mere indefinite something,
is a vital and living force, the same as electricity is a
force, though perhaps of a different nature. The
same great fact we are learning in regard to thought--that
thoughts are things, that thoughts are forces, the most
vital and powerful in the universe, that they have
form and substance and power, the quality of the power
determined as it is by the quality of the life in whose
organism the thoughts are engendered; and so, when a
thought is given birth to, it does not end there, but
takes form, and as a force it goes out and has its effect
upon other minds and lives, the effect being determined by
its intensity and the quality of the prevailing emotions,
and also by the emotions dominating the person at the time
the thoughts are engendered and given form.
Science,
while demonstrating the great facts it is today
demonstrating in connection with the mind in its relations
to and effects upon the body, is also finding from the
very laboratory experiments that each particular kind of
thought and emotion has its own peculiar qualities, and
hence its own peculiar effects or influences; and these it
is classifying with scientific accuracy. A very
general classification in just a word would be those of a
higher and those of a lower nature.
Some of
the chief ones among those of the lower nature are anger,
hatred, jealousy, malice, rage. Their effect,
especially when violent, is to emit a poisonous substance
into the system, or rather, to set up a corroding
influence which transforms the healthy and life-giving
secretions of the body into the poisonous and the
destructive. When one, for example, is dominated,
even if for but a moment, by a passion of anger or rage,
there is set up in the system what might be justly termed
a bodily thunderstorm, which has the effect of souring or
corroding the normal and healthy secretions of the body
and making them so that instead of life-giving they become
poisonous. This, if indulged in to any extent,
sooner or later induces the form of disease that this
particular state of mind and emotion or passion gives
birth to; and it in turn becomes chronic.
We shall
ultimately find, as we are beginning to so rapidly today,
that practically all disease has its origin in perverted
mental states or emotions; that anger, hatred, fear,
worry, jealousy, lust, as well as all milder forms of
perverted mental states and emotions, has each its own
peculiar poisoning effects, and induces each its own
peculiar form of disease, for all life is from within
out. Then some of the chief ones belonging to the
other class mental states and emotions of the higher
nature are love, sympathy, benevolence, kindliness, and
good cheer. These are the natural and the normal;
and their effect, when habitually entertained, is to
stimulate a vital, healthy, bounding, purifying, and
life-giving action, the exact opposite of the others; and
these very forces, set into a bounding activity, will in
time counteract and heal the disease-giving effects of
their opposites. Their effects upon the countenance
and features in inducing the highest beauty that can dwell
there are also marked and all-powerful. So much,
then, in regard to the effects of one's thought forces
upon the self. A word more in regard to their
effects upon others.
Our
prevailing thought forces determine the mental atmosphere
we create around us, and all who come within its influence
are affected in one way or another, according to the
quality of that atmosphere; and though they may not always
get the exact thoughts, they nevertheless get the effects
of the emotions dominating the originator of the thoughts,
and hence the creator of this particular mental
atmosphere; and the more sensitively organized the person,
the more sensitive he or she is to this atmosphere, even
at times to getting the exact and very thoughts. So
even in this the prophecy is beginning to be fulfilled,
“There is nothing hid that shall not be revealed.”
If the
thought forces sent out by any particular life are those
of hatred or jealousy or malice or fault-finding or
criticism or scorn, these same thought forces are aroused
and sent back from others, so that one is affected not
only by reason of the unpleasantness of having such
thoughts from others, but they also in turn affect one's
own mental states, and through these one’s own bodily
conditions, so that, so far as even the welfare of self is
concerned, the indulgence in thoughts and emotions of this
nature are most expensive, most detrimental, most
destructive.
If, on
the other hand, the thought forces sent out be those of
love, of sympathy, of kindliness, of cheer and goodwill,
these same forces are aroused and sent back, so that their
pleasant, ennobling, warming, and life-giving effects one
feels and is influenced by; and so again, so far even as
the welfare of self is concerned, there is nothing more
desirable, more valuable and life-giving. There
comes from others, then, exactly what one sends to, and
hence calls forth from them. And would we have
all the world love us, we must first then love all the
world--merely a great scientific fact. Why is it
that all people instinctively dislike and shun the little,
the mean, the self-centered, the selfish, while all the
world instinctively, irresistibly, loves and longs for the
company of the great-hearted, the tender-hearted, the
loving, the magnanimous, the sympathetic, the brave?
The mere answer because will not satisfy.
There is a deep, scientific reason for it; either this, or
it is not true.
Much has
been said, much written, in regard to what some have been
pleased to call personal magnetism, but which, as is so
commonly true in cases of this kind, is even today but
little understood. But to my mind personal magnetism
in its true sense, and as distinguished from what may be
termed purely animal magnetism, is nothing more nor less
than the thought forces sent out by a great-hearted,
tender-hearted, magnanimous, loving, sympathetic man or
woman; for, let me ask, have you ever known of any great
personal magnetism in the case of the little, the mean,
the vindictive, the self-centered? Never, I venture
to say, but always in the case of the other.
Why,
there is nothing that can stand before this wonderful
transmuting power of love. So far even as the
enemy is concerned, I may not be to blame if I have an
enemy; but I am to blame if I keep them as such,
especially after I know of this wonderful transmuting
power. Have I then an enemy, I will refuse,
absolutely refuse, to recognize them as such; and instead
of entertaining the thoughts of them that they entertain
of me, instead of sending them like thought forces, I will
send them only thoughts of love, of sympathy, of brotherly
kindness, and magnanimity. But a short time it will
be until they feel these, and are influenced by
them. Then in addition I will watch my opportunity,
and whenever I can, I will even go out of my way to do
them some little kindnesses. Before these forces
they cannot stand, and by and by I shall find that he or
she who today is my bitterest enemy is my warmest friend,
and may be my staunchest supporter. No, the wise man
is he who by that wonderful alchemy of love transmutes the
enemy into the friend--transmutes the bitterest enemy into
the warmest friend and supporter. Certainly this is
what the Master teacher meant when He said: “Love your
enemies, do good to them that hate you and despitefully
use you: thou shalt thereby be heaping coals of fire upon
their heads.” For, thou shalt melt them:
before this force they cannot stand. Thou shalt melt
them, and transmute them into friends.
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