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_ Old Man. Have you given thought to the Gospel of Self-
Approval since we talked?
Young Man. I have.
O.M. It was I that moved you to it. That is to say an
OUTSIDE INFLUENCE moved you to it--not one that originated in
your head. Will you try to keep that in mind and not forget it?
Y.M. Yes. Why?
O.M. Because by and by in one of our talks, I wish to
further impress upon you that neither you, nor I, nor any man
ever originates a thought in his own head. THE UTTERER OF A
THOUGHT ALWAYS UTTERS A SECOND-HAND ONE.
Y.M. Oh, now--
O.M. Wait. Reserve your remark till we get to that part of
our discussion--tomorrow or next day, say. Now, then, have you
been considering the proposition that no act is ever born of any
but a self-contenting impulse--(primarily). You have sought.
What have you found?
Y.M. I have not been very fortunate. I have examined many
fine and apparently self-sacrificing deeds in romances and
biographies, but--
O.M. Under searching analysis the ostensible self-sacrifice
disappeared? It naturally would.
Y.M. But here in this novel is one which seems to promise.
In the Adirondack woods is a wage-earner and lay preacher in the
lumber-camps who is of noble character and deeply religious. An
earnest and practical laborer in the New York slums comes up
there on vacation--he is leader of a section of the University
Settlement. Holme, the lumberman, is fired with a desire to
throw away his excellent worldly prospects and go down and save
souls on the East Side. He counts it happiness to make this
sacrifice for the glory of God and for the cause of Christ. He
resigns his place, makes the sacrifice cheerfully, and goes to
the East Side and preaches Christ and Him crucified every day and
every night to little groups of half-civilized foreign paupers
who scoff at him. But he rejoices in the scoffings, since he is
suffering them in the great cause of Christ. You have so filled
my mind with suspicions that I was constantly expecting to find a
hidden questionable impulse back of all this, but I am thankful
to say I have failed. This man saw his duty, and for DUTY'S SAKE
he sacrificed self and assumed the burden it imposed.
O.M. Is that as far as you have read?
Y.M. Yes.
O.M. Let us read further, presently. Meantime, in
sacrificing himself--NOT for the glory of God, PRIMARILY, as HE
imagined, but FIRST to content that exacting and inflexible
master within him--DID HE SACRIFICE ANYBODY ELSE?
Y.M. How do you mean?
O.M. He relinquished a lucrative post and got mere food and
lodging in place of it. Had he dependents?
Y.M. Well--yes.
O.M. In what way and to what extend did his self-sacrifice
affect THEM?
Y.M. He was the support of a superannuated father. He had
a young sister with a remarkable voice--he was giving her a
musical education, so that her longing to be self-supporting
might be gratified. He was furnishing the money to put a young
brother through a polytechnic school and satisfy his desire to
become a civil engineer.
O.M. The old father's comforts were now curtailed?
Y.M. Quite seriously. Yes.
O.M. The sister's music-lessens had to stop?
Y.M. Yes.
O.M. The young brother's education--well, an extinguishing
blight fell upon that happy dream, and he had to go to sawing
wood to support the old father, or something like that?
Y.M. It is about what happened. Yes.
O.M. What a handsome job of self-sacrificing he did do! It
seems to me that he sacrificed everybody EXCEPT himself. Haven't
I told you that no man EVER sacrifices himself; that there is no
instance of it upon record anywhere; and that when a man's
Interior Monarch requires a thing of its slave for either its
MOMENTARY or its PERMANENT contentment, that thing must and will
be furnished and that command obeyed, no matter who may stand in
the way and suffer disaster by it? That man RUINED HIS FAMILY to
please and content his Interior Monarch--
Y.M. And help Christ's cause.
O.M. Yes--SECONDLY. Not firstly. HE thought it was firstly.
Y.M. Very well, have it so, if you will. But it could be
that he argued that if he saved a hundred souls in New York--
O.M. The sacrifice of the FAMILY would be justified by that
great profit upon the--the--what shall we call it?
Y.M. Investment?
O.M. Hardly. How would SPECULATION do? How would GAMBLE
do? Not a solitary soul-capture was sure. He played for a
possible thirty-three-hundred-per-cent profit. It was GAMBLING--
with his family for "chips." However let us see how the game
came out. Maybe we can get on the track of the secret original
impulse, the REAL impulse, that moved him to so nobly self-
sacrifice his family in the Savior's cause under the superstition
that he was sacrificing himself. I will read a chapter or so. .
. . Here we have it! It was bound to expose itself sooner or
later. He preached to the East-Side rabble a season, then went
back to his old dull, obscure life in the lumber-camps "HURT TO
THE HEART, HIS PRIDE HUMBLED." Why? Were not his efforts
acceptable to the Savior, for Whom alone they were made? Dear
me, that detail is LOST SIGHT OF, is not even referred to, the
fact that it started out as a motive is entirely forgotten! Then
what is the trouble? The authoress quite innocently and
unconsciously gives the whole business away. The trouble was
this: this man merely PREACHED to the poor; that is not the
University Settlement's way; it deals in larger and better things
than that, and it did not enthuse over that crude Salvation-Army
eloquence. It was courteous to Holme--but cool. It did not pet
him, did not take him to its bosom. "PERISHED WERE ALL HIS
DREAMS OF DISTINCTION, THE PRAISE AND GRATEFUL APPROVAL--" Of
whom? The Savior? No; the Savior is not mentioned. Of whom,
then? Of "His FELLOW-WORKERS." Why did he want that? Because
the Master inside of him wanted it, and would not be content
without it. That emphasized sentence quoted above, reveals the
secret we have been seeking, the original impulse, the REAL
impulse, which moved the obscure and unappreciated Adirondack
lumberman to sacrifice his family and go on that crusade to the
East Side--which said original impulse was this, to wit: without
knowing it HE WENT THERE TO SHOW A NEGLECTED WORLD THE LARGE
TALENT THAT WAS IN HIM, AND RISE TO DISTINCTION. As I have
warned you before, NO act springs from any but the one law, the
one motive. But I pray you, do not accept this law upon my say-
so; but diligently examine for yourself. Whenever you read of a
self-sacrificing act or hear of one, or of a duty done for DUTY'S
SAKE, take it to pieces and look for the REAL motive. It is
always there.
Y.M. I do it every day. I cannot help it, now that I have
gotten started upon the degrading and exasperating quest. For it
is hatefully interesting!--in fact, fascinating is the word. As
soon as I come across a golden deed in a book I have to stop and
take it apart and examine it, I cannot help myself.
O.M. Have you ever found one that defeated the rule?
Y.M. No--at least, not yet. But take the case of servant-
tipping in Europe. You pay the HOTEL for service; you owe the
servants NOTHING, yet you pay them besides. Doesn't that defeat it?
O.M. In what way?
Y.M. You are not OBLIGED to do it, therefore its source is
compassion for their ill-paid condition, and--
O.M. Has that custom ever vexed you, annoyed you, irritated you?
Y.M. Well, yes.
O.M. Still you succumbed to it?
Y.M. Of course.
O.M. Why of course?
Y.M. Well, custom is law, in a way, and laws must be
submitted to--everybody recognizes it as a DUTY.
O.M. Then you pay for the irritating tax for DUTY'S sake?
Y.M. I suppose it amounts to that.
O.M. Then the impulse which moves you to submit to the tax
is not ALL compassion, charity, benevolence?
Y.M. Well--perhaps not.
O.M. Is ANY of it?
Y.M. I--perhaps I was too hasty in locating its source.
O.M. Perhaps so. In case you ignored the custom would you
get prompt and effective service from the servants?
Y.M. Oh, hear yourself talk! Those European servants?
Why, you wouldn't get any of all, to speak of.
O.M. Couldn't THAT work as an impulse to move you to pay
the tax?
Y.M. I am not denying it.
O.M. Apparently, then, it is a case of for-duty's-sake with
a little self-interest added?
Y.M. Yes, it has the look of it. But here is a point:
we pay that tax knowing it to be unjust and an extortion; yet we
go away with a pain at the heart if we think we have been stingy
with the poor fellows; and we heartily wish we were back again,
so that we could do the right thing, and MORE than the right
thing, the GENEROUS thing. I think it will be difficult for you
to find any thought of self in that impulse.
O.M. I wonder why you should think so. When you find
service charged in the HOTEL bill does it annoy you?
Y.M. No.
O.M. Do you ever complain of the amount of it?
Y.M. No, it would not occur to me.
O.M. The EXPENSE, then, is not the annoying detail. It is
a fixed charge, and you pay it cheerfully, you pay it without a
murmur. When you came to pay the servants, how would you like it
if each of the men and maids had a fixed charge?
Y.M. Like it? I should rejoice!
O.M. Even if the fixed tax were a shade MORE than you had
been in the habit of paying in the form of tips?
Y.M. Indeed, yes!
O.M. Very well, then. As I understand it, it isn't really
compassion nor yet duty that moves you to pay the tax, and it
isn't the AMOUNT of the tax that annoys you. Yet SOMETHING
annoys you. What is it?
Y.M. Well, the trouble is, you never know WHAT to pay, the
tax varies so, all over Europe.
O.M. So you have to guess?
Y.M. There is no other way. So you go on thinking and
thinking, and calculating and guessing, and consulting with other
people and getting their views; and it spoils your sleep nights,
and makes you distraught in the daytime, and while you are
pretending to look at the sights you are only guessing and
guessing and guessing all the time, and being worried and
miserable.
O.M. And all about a debt which you don't owe and don't
have to pay unless you want to! Strange. What is the purpose of
the guessing?
Y.M. To guess out what is right to give them, and not be
unfair to any of them.
O.M. It has quite a noble look--taking so much pains and using up
so much valuable time in order to be just and fair to a poor servant
to whom you owe nothing, but who needs money and is ill paid.
Y.M. I think, myself, that if there is any ungracious
motive back of it it will be hard to find.
O.M. How do you know when you have not paid a servant fairly?
Y.M. Why, he is silent; does not thank you. Sometimes he
gives you a look that makes you ashamed. You are too proud to
rectify your mistake there, with people looking, but afterward
you keep on wishing and wishing you HAD done it. My, the shame
and the pain of it! Sometimes you see, by the signs, that you
have it JUST RIGHT, and you go away mightily satisfied.
Sometimes the man is so effusively thankful that you know you
have given him a good deal MORE than was necessary.
O.M. NECESSARY? Necessary for what?
Y.M. To content him.
O.M. How do you feel THEN?
Y.M. Repentant.
O.M. It is my belief that you have NOT been concerning
yourself in guessing out his just dues, but only in ciphering out
what would CONTENT him. And I think you have a self-deluding
reason for that.
Y.M. What was it?
O.M. If you fell short of what he was expecting and
wanting, you would get a look which would SHAME YOU BEFORE FOLK.
That would give you PAIN. YOU--for you are only working for
yourself, not HIM. If you gave him too much you would be ASHAMED
OF YOURSELF for it, and that would give YOU pain--another case of
thinking of YOURSELF, protecting yourself, SAVING YOURSELF FROM
DISCOMFORT. You never think of the servant once--except to guess
out how to get HIS APPROVAL. If you get that, you get your OWN
approval, and that is the sole and only thing you are after. The
Master inside of you is then satisfied, contented, comfortable;
there was NO OTHER thing at stake, as a matter of FIRST interest,
anywhere in the transaction.
Further Instances
Y.M. Well, to think of it; Self-Sacrifice for others, the
grandest thing in man, ruled out! non-existent!
O.M. Are you accusing me of saying that?
Y.M. Why, certainly.
O.M. I haven't said it.
Y.M. What did you say, then?
O.M. That no man has ever sacrificed himself in the common
meaning of that phrase--which is, self-sacrifice for another
ALONE. Men make daily sacrifices for others, but it is for their
own sake FIRST. The act must content their own spirit FIRST.
The other beneficiaries come second.
Y.M. And the same with duty for duty's sake?
O.M. Yes. No man performs a duty for mere duty's sake; the act
must content his spirit FIRST. He must feel better for DOING the
duty than he would for shirking it. Otherwise he will not do it.
Y.M. Take the case of the BERKELEY CASTLE.
O.M. It was a noble duty, greatly performed. Take it to
pieces and examine it, if you like.
Y.M. A British troop-ship crowded with soldiers and their
wives and children. She struck a rock and began to sink. There
was room in the boats for the women and children only. The
colonel lined up his regiment on the deck and said "it is our
duty to die, that they may be saved." There was no murmur, no
protest. The boats carried away the women and children. When
the death-moment was come, the colonel and his officers took
their several posts, the men stood at shoulder-arms, and so, as
on dress-parade, with their flag flying and the drums beating,
they went down, a sacrifice to duty for duty's sake. Can you
view it as other than that?
O.M. It was something as fine as that, as exalted as that.
Could you have remained in those ranks and gone down to your
death in that unflinching way?
Y.M. Could I? No, I could not.
O.M. Think. Imagine yourself there, with that watery doom
creeping higher and higher around you.
Y.M. I can imagine it. I feel all the horror of it. I could
not have endured it, I could not have remained in my place.
I know it.
O.M. Why?
Y.M. There is no why about it: I know myself, and I know I
couldn't DO it.
O.M. But it would be your DUTY to do it.
Y.M. Yes, I know--but I couldn't.
O.M. It was more than thousand men, yet not one of them
flinched. Some of them must have been born with your
temperament; if they could do that great duty for duty's SAKE,
why not you? Don't you know that you could go out and gather
together a thousand clerks and mechanics and put them on that
deck and ask them to die for duty's sake, and not two dozen of
them would stay in the ranks to the end?
Y.M. Yes, I know that.
O.M. But you TRAIN them, and put them through a campaign
or two; then they would be soldiers; soldiers, with a soldier's
pride, a soldier's self-respect, a soldier's ideals. They would
have to content a SOLDIER'S spirit then, not a clerk's, not a
mechanic's. They could not content that spirit by shirking a
soldier's duty, could they?
Y.M. I suppose not.
O.M. Then they would do the duty not for the DUTY'S sake,
but for their OWN sake--primarily. The DUTY was JUST THE SAME,
and just as imperative, when they were clerks, mechanics, raw
recruits, but they wouldn't perform it for that. As clerks and
mechanics they had other ideals, another spirit to satisfy, and
they satisfied it. They HAD to; it is the law. TRAINING is
potent. Training toward higher and higher, and ever higher
ideals is worth any man's thought and labor and diligence.
Y.M. Consider the man who stands by his duty and goes to
the stake rather than be recreant to it.
O.M. It is his make and his training. He has to content
the spirit that is in him, though it cost him his life. Another
man, just as sincerely religious, but of different temperament,
will fail of that duty, though recognizing it as a duty, and
grieving to be unequal to it: but he must content the spirit
that is in him--he cannot help it. He could not perform that
duty for duty's SAKE, for that would not content his spirit, and
the contenting of his spirit must be looked to FIRST. It takes
precedence of all other duties.
Y.M. Take the case of a clergyman of stainless private
morals who votes for a thief for public office, on his own
party's ticket, and against an honest man on the other ticket.
O.M. He has to content his spirit. He has no public
morals; he has no private ones, where his party's prosperity is
at stake. He will always be true to his make and training. _
Read next: Chapter IV - Training
Read previous: Chapter II - Man's Sole Impulse--the Securing of His Own Approval
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