simpler basis, anyway.
Y.M. Explain.
O.M. You keep back your scoldings now, to please YOURSELF
by pleasing your MOTHER; presently the mere triumphing over your
temper will delight your vanity and confer a more delicious
pleasure and satisfaction upon you than even the approbation of
your MOTHER confers upon you now. You will then labor for
yourself directly and at FIRST HAND, not by the roundabout way
through your mother. It simplifies the matter, and it also
strengthens the impulse.
Y.M. Ah, dear! But I sha’n’t ever reach the point where I
will spare the girl for HER sake PRIMARILY, not mine?
O.M. Why–yes. In heaven.
Y.M. (AFTER A REFLECTIVE PAUSE) Temperament. Well, I see
one must allow for temperament. It is a large factor, sure
enough. My mother is thoughtful, and not hot-tempered. When I
was dressed I went to her room; she was not there; I called, she
answered from the bathroom. I heard the water running. I
inquired. She answered, without temper, that Jane had forgotten
her bath, and she was preparing it herself. I offered to ring,
but she said, “No, don’t do that; it would only distress her to
be confronted with her lapse, and would be a rebuke; she doesn’t
deserve that–she is not to blame for the tricks her memory
serves her.” I say–has my mother an Interior Master?–and where
was he?
O.M. He was there. There, and looking out for his own
peace and pleasure and contentment. The girl’s distress would
have pained YOUR MOTHER. Otherwise the girl would have been rung
up, distress and all. I know women who would have gotten a No. 1
PLEASURE out of ringing Jane up–and so they would infallibly
have pushed the button and obeyed the law of their make and
training, which are the servants of their Interior Masters. It
is quite likely that a part of your mother’s forbearance came
from training. The GOOD kind of training–whose best and highest
function is to see to it that every time it confers a
satisfaction upon its pupil a benefit shall fall at second hand
upon others.
Y.M. If you were going to condense into an admonition your
plan for the general betterment of the race’s condition, how
would you word it?
Admonition
O.M. Diligently train your ideals UPWARD and STILL UPWARD
toward a summit where you will find your chiefest pleasure in
conduct which, while contenting you, will be sure to confer
benefits upon your neighbor and the community.
Y.M. Is that a new gospel?
O.M. No.
Y.M. It has been taught before?
O.M. For ten thousand years.
Y.M. By whom?
O.M. All the great religions–all the great gospels.
Y.M. Then there is nothing new about it?
O.M. Oh yes, there is. It is candidly stated, this time.
That has not been done before.
Y.M. How do you mean?
O.M. Haven’t I put YOU FIRST, and your neighbor and the
community AFTERWARD?
Y.M. Well, yes, that is a difference, it is true.
O.M. The difference between straight speaking and crooked;
the difference between frankness and shuffling.
Y.M. Explain.
O.M. The others offer your a hundred bribes to be good,
thus conceding that the Master inside of you must be conciliated
and contented first, and that you will do nothing at FIRST HAND
but for his sake; then they turn square around and require you to
do good for OTHER’S sake CHIEFLY; and to do your duty for duty’s
SAKE, chiefly; and to do acts of SELF-SACRIFICE. Thus at the
outset we all stand upon the same ground–recognition of the
supreme and absolute Monarch that resides in man, and we all
grovel before him and appeal to him; then those others dodge and
shuffle, and face around and unfrankly and inconsistently and
illogically change the form of their appeal and direct its
persuasions to man’s SECOND-PLACE powers and to powers which have
NO EXISTENCE in him, thus advancing them to FIRST place; whereas
in my Admonition I stick logically and consistently to the
original position: I place the Interior Master’s requirements
FIRST, and keep them there.
Y.M. If we grant, for the sake of argument, that your
scheme and the other schemes aim at and produce the same result–