Newell Dwight Hillis

“ One of our wisest teachers has said, "The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world, is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk, for one who can think. But thousands can think for one who can see; to see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one. Therefore finding the world of literature more or less divided into thinkers and seers, I believe we shall find also, that the seers are wholly the greater race of the two." For greatness is vision. Opening his eyes, Newton sees the planets revolve and finds his fame. ”

“ All undefined and indefinable the spiritual glow and beauty that lie upon the soul, like the [Pg 48] soft bloom upon a ripe peach. What song is to the birds, what culture is to the intellect, and eloquence is to the orator, that the spiritual is to character. It is the soul made ample in faculty, fertile in resource, struck through and through with ripeness, and inflected toward Christ's own sympathy, self-sacrifice and love.
The spiritual element also explains the note of distinction in the highest life and art. Many of our modern painters have failed, because they have been fleshly. ”

“ STRENGTH BLOSSOMING INTO BEAUTY.
If the greatest scientist is he who discerns some law of gravity that explains the forward movement of all stars and planets, if the great historian is he who unfolds one social principle that governs all nations, so he is the greatest moral teacher who discovers some unit idea that sweeps all details into one glorious unity, as did Channing when he said, "Let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common." ”

“ Man now seeks to make his books beautiful for the intellect, his library and gallery beautiful for taste and imagination, his temple beautiful for worship, his home beautiful in the interest of the heart, his song and prayer not simply true, but beautiful with praise to the unseen God. If in rude ages beauty was associated with physical elements, the glory of our era is that beauty, unfolding from century to century, is now increasingly associated with those moral qualities that lend remembrance to mother and martyr, to hero and patriot and saint. ”

“ And the soul is a garden in which truth, purity, patience, love, long suffering are qualities whiter than [Pg 19] any lily and sweeter than any rose, whose perfume never passes, whose beauty does not fade. And having succeeded in transforming waste places into centers of radiant beauty, man encourages the hope that he can carry his own reason, judgment and ambition up to full symmetry and perfection. ”

“ When the admirers of Shakespeare bought the house in which their hero was born, they planted in the garden the flowers which the poet loved. Passing through the little wicket gate the pilgrim finds himself moving along a perfumed path, while to his garments clings the odor of violets and roses, sweet peas and buttercups, the columbine and honeysuckle—flowers these, whose roots are in earth indeed, but whose beauty is borrowed from heaven. From these grounds men have expelled the poison ivy, the deadly nightshade, all burdocks and thistles. ”

“ When every drop of blood in the veins is pure a beauteous flush overcasts the young girl's cheek. When summer hath lent ripeness to the harvests God casts a golden hue over the sheaf and lends a crimson flush to the autumn leaves. For beauty is ripeness, maturity and strength. ”

“ Nature says, here is a rude affection; man must answer, let the heart become as full of love and sympathy as the summer is full of ripeness and beauty. Nature says, here is a conscience, train it; man should answer, let the conscience be as true to Christ and God as a needle to the pole. ”

“ A STUDY OF CHANNING'S "SYMPHONY" AS AN OUTLINE OF THE IDEAL LIFE AND CHARACTER.
To the revival of learning in the fourteenth century, to the revival of religion in the sixteenth, and the revival of liberty in the eighteenth century must now be added the revival of the beautiful in this new era for art. In former ages man was content if his house was dry, his coat was warm, his tool strong. But now has come an era when man's house must have beautiful walls, when woman's dress must have harmonious hues, when the speaker's truth must be clothed in words of beauty ”

“ Having made tools, books, travel, home, religion to be life-teachers, God has now ordained the beautiful as an apostle of the higher Christian life.
Recognizing the hand of God in every upward movement of society, we explain this new enthusiasm for art upon the [Pg 13] principle that beauty is the outer sign of an inner perfection. Oft with lying skill men veneer the plaster pillar with slabs of marble, and hide soft wood with strips of mahogany. But beauty is no outer veneer. When ripeness enters the fruit within a soft bloom steals over the peach without. ”

“ Ambition, worn with its fierce fever, whispers, "Joy is not in me." Success confesses, "Joy is not in me." In such hours happy the youth who has learned in solitude to go apart and find that happiness that "the world can neither give nor take away." ”

“ Now beauty has become a commodity. To-day, to hold his place, the artisan must become an artist. The era of ugliness, with its clumsy tools and ungainly garments, has gone forever. No longer content with lending strength to coat or chair or car, manufacturers now vie with one another in a struggle to make the garment take on lines of grace, and colors soft and beautiful. ”

“ But no picture ever painted, no poem ever perfected, no temple ever builded is comparable for strength and beauty to a full-orbed soul, matured through a widely trained reason and a sober judgment—mellow in heart and conscience, pervaded throughout with the spirit of Jesus Christ, the soul's master and model. ”

“ When all the caravans of knowledge have gone trooping through the eye-gate and the ear-gate into the soul city, Channing reminds us that these knowledges must be assorted and assimilated by "studying hard and thinking quietly."
If some rich men fill their shelves with books that are never read, some poor men fill their memory with facts upon which they never think. The mere accumulation of truths about earth and air, about plants and animals and men, does not mean culture. Education does not [Pg 36] mean stuffing the mind with Greek roots, as the husbandman stuffs his granary with vegetables. ”

“ Our poetry and literature begins with Homer, blind indeed to earthly sights and sciences, but who traced with an inner eye, the strifes of gods and men, and gave his inner thoughts immortal form and beauty. All modern science begins with that scholar who for fifty years was unknown in the forum or market-place, for Charles Darwin was "studying hard and thinking quietly" in his little garden, where he watched his seeds, earthworms, his beetles and doves. ”

“ By its secret processes, the bee distills the same liquor into honey. It is possible for the youth to sweep into the memory a thousand great facts without having distilled one of these honeyed drops named wisdom and culture. ”

“ And to those who "think quietly" it is given to rise into the upper air. Dwelling upon the heights, these may look down upon all heated centers with their soot and grime, their stacked houses, reeking gutters, the din and noise of wheels, the hoarse roar of the clashing streets, and in these hours of reverie, the soul marvels that it was ever tossed about upon these furious currents of ambition. ”

“ It is a proverb, that no fool is a perfect fool until he can talk Latin. Looking out upon land and sea and sky, the educated soul sees all, and appreciates all. Culture lends the note of distinction and acquaints the youth with all the best that has been said and done. ”

“ At last he completed his symphony of an ideal life, that he hoped would help the youth and maiden to make each day as inspiring as a song, each deed as holy as a prayer, each character as perfect as a picture. ”

“ Conscious of weakness, inferiority fears frankness. Great men are as open as glass bee-hives and as transparent as the sunbeams, for they are conscious of their enormous reserves. Nature permits no flower or fruit to conceal its real self. ”

“ Carry the strange face or form tatooed upon the arm of the savage up to beauty and it becomes a Madonna or a Transfiguration. Carry a stone altar and a smoking sacrifice up to beauty and it becomes a Cologne cathedral or a Westminster Abbey. Indeed, historians might use the beautiful as the touchstone of human progress. The old milestones of growth were metals. ”

“ He whose body rides in a palace car must not carry a soul that is like unto a savage. Having lingered long before the portrait of Antigone or Cordelia, the young girl finds herself pledged to turn that ideal into life and character. ”

“ Listening to sages, the youth of to-day garners into the storehouse of his mind all the intellectual treasures of the good and great of past ages. That youth may have culture without college who gives heed to Channing's injunction "to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages." ”

“ In founding his ideal life upon contentment with small means, Channing pleads for simplicity and the return to "plain living and high thinking." He would fain double the soul's leisure by halving its wants. ”

“ And when the soul has gone toward full-orbed splendor and stands forth clothed with full manhood the sage condenses the wisdom of a thousand volumes into four maxims, "Act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never." ”

“ The violet frankly tells its story; the decaying fruit frankly reveals its nature. No flaming candle pretends to light while emitting rays of blackness. Victories won by concealment are lying victories. ”

“ What a transformation man has wrought in matter! Nature says, here is a lump of mud; man answers, let it become a beautiful vase. Nature says, here is a sweet briar; man answers, let it become a rose double and of many hues. ”

“ Needing many forms of wisdom, our age needs none more than the grace to "live content with small means, seeking elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion."
[Pg 29]
THE WORLD A WHISPERING GALLERY.
When the sage counsels us "to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages," he opens to us the secrets of the soul's increase in wisdom and happiness. All culture begins with listening. Growth is not through shrewd thinking or eloquent speaking, but through accurate seeing and hearing. ”

“ Those forces manifest in thunder are nature's weakest forces. Her monarch energies work silently in the roots and harvests, or lift, without rattle of engine or noise of wheel, countless millions of tons of water from ocean into the air. For gentleness is not weakness. Only giants can be gentle. Fronting an emergency weakness is agitated, but strength is calm and cool. Gentleness is controlled strength. ”

“ But whether waiting or working, man must "hurry never." It is fear that makes haste. Confidence is composed. Greatness is tranquillity. Dead objects, like bullets, can be hurled swiftly. Living seeds cannot be forced. ”

“ Nature will not be hurried. For her finest effects in fruits and flowers, she takes her own time. In February the husbandman finds the sun refusing warmth, the clouds refusing rain, the soil refusing seed. Therefore he awaits occasions. And lo! in May, the sunbeams wax warm, the soil wakens to full ardor, the clouds give forth their rain, and the husbandman enters into his opportunity. ”

“ Millet described [Pg 46] his career as ten years of daubing, ten years of drudgery, ten years of despair and ten years of liberty and success. Man begins at nothing. Life is a school. Duties are drill-masters. Man's faculties are complex. Slowly the soul moves toward harmony, symmetry and beauty. He who "hurries never" has found the secret of growth, serenity and repose. ”

“ The law of frankness is the law of truth, that is at once the foundation of character and crowns the structure with strength and beauty.
Vast issues also are involved in the injunction "to talk gently." Noise is weakness. [Pg 42] Bluster is inferiority rising into consciousness. The rattle of machinery means waste power somewhere. Rushing forward at the rate of thousands of miles an hour, the planets are noiseless as sunbeams, because they represent power that is harnessed and subdued. ”

“ A wise youth will think twice before embarking upon a career involving large wealth. Some there are possessed of vast property whose duty it is to carry bravely their heavy burden in the interest of society and the increase of life's comforts, conveniences and happiness. ”

“ SUCCESS AND TIMELINESS.
But the strongest man needs to "await occasions." The essence of all good work is timeliness. For the right thing done at the wrong time is as bad as the wrong thing at any time. ”

“ Listening to stars, Laplace heard the story how fire mists are changed to habitable earths, and so became wise toward iron and wood, steel and stone. Listening to birds, Cuvier heard the song within the shell and found out the life history of all things that creep or swim or fly. Listening to babes that have, as Froebel thought, been so recently playmates with [Pg 34] angels, the philosopher discovered in the teachableness, trust and purity of childhood, the secret of individual happiness and progress. ”

“ The principle of acting frankly demands truth in the hidden parts, rebukes him whose method is "the iron hand in a velvet glove," smites the Machiavelian policy of smiling gently while arranging instruments of death. In their ignorance shrewd men advise the youth to cloak his [Pg 41] keen desire beneath an outer indifference. But small men use lying artifices and disguises to protect themselves. ”