are. It is our breath, our heart, our blood. It is our only
spur, our whip, our goad, our only impelling power; we have no
other. Without it we should be mere inert images, corpses; no
one would do anything, there would be no progress, the world
would stand still. We ought to stand reverently uncovered when
the name of that stupendous power is uttered.
Y.M. I am not convinced.
O.M. You will be when you think.
III
Instances in Point
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